W2. 


OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 
In  1844. 


THE  POET 
AMONG  THE  HILLS. 


OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

IN    BERKSHIRE. 

His  Berkshire  Poems,  some  of  them  now  first  published,  with 
Historic  and  Descriptive  Incidents  Concerning  the 

Poems,  the  Poet,  and  his  Literary  Neighbors. 
His  Poetic,  Personal  and  Ancestral  Relations  to  the  County. 


J.    E.   A..  SMITH 


The  memory  of  great  men  is  the  noblest  inheritance  of  their  country. ' 


PITTSFIELD,  MASS.: 
GEORGE    BLATCHFORD. 

1895- 


COPYRIGHT,  1895,  BY 
J.    E.    A.    SMITH. 


"Whatever  strengthens  our  local  attachments  is  favor 
able  both  to  individual  and  to  national  character.  Our 
home,  our  birthplace,  our  native  land, — think  for  a 
while  what  the  virtues  are  which  arise  out  of  the  feelings 
connected  with  these  words.  .  .  .  Show  me  a  man  who 
cares  no  more  for  one  place  than  another,  and  I  will 
show  you  in  that  same  person  one  who  loves  nothing 
but  himself.  Beware  of  those  who  are  homeless  by 
choice  :  you  have  no  hold  on  a  human  being  whose  affec 
tions  are  without  a  tap-root. "— SOUTHEY  ;  The  Doctor. 


M  5880 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

PROLOGUE. — Why  and  Because — Dr.  Holmes'  Berk 
shire  Poetry  Characterized — Fable  of  a  Socialist 
Community— What  Pittsfield  is  Proud  of— Berk 
shire  Scenery— A  Haunt  for  Literary  Lions — 
Melville  and  Hawthorne — Longfellow,  the  Old 
Clock  on  the  Stairs,  Roaring  Brook  and  Kava- 
nagh,  Charles  Sumner  and  Fanny  Kemble — Dr. 
Holmes  and  the  Newspaper  Press,  .  .  7 

I.  BERKSHIRE  JUBILEE  SPEECH  AND  POEM. — Sketch 
of  the  Jubilee— The  Dinner— David  Dudley 
Field's  Journey  of  a  Day — Catherine  Sedg- 
wick's  Chronicles — Dr.  Holmes'  Speech  from  a 
Table — His  Poem  of  Welcome,  .  .  .  49 

II.  THE   WENDELL   FAMILY.— Jacob  Wendell's  De 
scent — Jacob   Wendell   in    Boston — Connection 
with  Old  Boston  Families — His  Descendants — 
Holmes      Genealogy  —  Phillips      Genealogy — 
Wendell  Phillips— Oliver  Wendell  in  Pittsfield 
— Curious  Incidents — Oliver  Wendell  Fierce  for 
Moderation  ;   Friendship  for  Henry  and   Peter 
Van  Schaack, 69 

III.  DR.  HOLMES'  SUMMER  VILLA,  AND  LIFE  IN  IT. 
—The  Villa— Letters  to  a  Pittsfield  Lady  and 
Her  Reminiscences — Letter  to  a  School-Teacher 
— Blackberries  and   Other  Berries — The  Canoe 
Meadows — The  Holmes  Pine,       .         .  87 

IV.  A    VISION    OF    THE    HOUSATONIC    RIVER.— Dr. 
Holmes'  Love  for  the  River — Remembered  by 
the  Classic  Cam  in  England— River  Loved  by 
Many  Men  and  Women  of  Letters — The  Vision,     98 


6  TABLE   OF   CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

V.  YOUNG  LADIES'   INSTITUTE  POEM. — Character  of 
the  Institute — John  Quincy  Adams  Visits  It — 
Graduating  Exercises  in  1849 — Speech  by  Ex- 
President  John  Tyler — Dr.  Holmes'  Speech  and 
Poem, 106 

VI.  THE    PLOUGHMAN. — Genesis  of    the    Berkshire 
Agricultural  Society— Elkanah  Watson— Major 
Thomas  Melville— John  Quincy  Adams  on  Agri 
cultural  Oratory— The  Picturesque  First  Cattle 
Show— How    Women    Used   to   Receive  Their 
Premiums — About    Ploughing  Matches — Cattle 
Shows  of  1849  and  1851— Dr.   Holmes'  Report 
on  Ploughing  Match — His  Poem,  "The  Plough 
man,"    ........  114 

VII.  THE  PITTSFIELD  CEMETERY  DEDICATION  POEM. 
— Description  of  Cemetery  Grounds — Previous 
Burial -Grounds — Dedication  Exercises — Quota 
tion     from     Rev.     Dr.     Neill's    Address— Dr. 
Holmes     and     Wendell     Phillips— Dedication 
Poem,    ........  135 

VIII.  THE  NEW  EDEN.— How  the  Poem  Was  Writ 
ten,        145 

IX.  POEMS  FOR  LADIES'  FAIR. — St.  Stephen's  Church 
Fair— A  Lady's  Raid  on  Dr.  Holmes'  Poetical 
Preserves— Camilla — Portia's  Leaden   Casket — 
What  a  Dollar  Will  Buy,       .         .         .         .  151 

X.  L'ENVOI. — The  Mountains  and  the  Sea— Presen 
tation  from  Dr.  Holmes'  Library  to  Berkshire 
Athenasum  —  Hawthorne's       Desk  —  Pittsfield 
Characters  in  Dr.   Holmes'  Novels — Good-By, 
Old  Folks! 159 

XI.  APPENDIX.— Longfellow's     Poem,     "The    Old 
Clock  on  the  Stairs  ;"  Fanny  Kemble's  Ode  for 
the   Berkshire   Jubilee,  '''A  Berkshire  Summer 
Morning — A  Quaint  Old  Cattle-Show  Program,  169 


THE  POET  AMONG  THE  HILLS. 


PROLOGUE. 

Why  and  Because— Dr.  Holmes'  Berkshire  Poetry  Char 
acterized—What  Pittsfield  is  Proud  of— Fable  of  a 
Socialist  Community— Berkshire  Scenery— A  Haunt 
for  Literary  Lions — Melville  and  Hawthorne — Long 
fellow,  the  Old  Clock  on  the  Stairs,  and  Roaring . 
Brook — Charles  Sumner  and  Fanny  Kemble — Dr. 
Holmes  and  the  Newspaper  Press. 

ONE  who  glances  at  the  title-page  of  this  lit 
tle  volume  will  naturally  ask:  "What  is  its 
object?  Why  should  it  be  compiled  at  all?" 
Impertinent  questions  deserve  no  answer;  and 
queries  like  these  would  be  impertinent  if  made 
about  a  work  in  the  ordinary  course  of  liter 
ature,  where  an  author's  will  is  autocratic  in 
conferring  titles.  But  this  diverges  from  that 
course  in  a  manner  which  limits  the  editor's 
independence — to  say  nothing  of  autocracy. 
Thus  the  supposed  questions,  being  natural,  are 
pertinent;  and,  being  pertinent,  are  to  be  an 
swered. 


THE   POET  AMONG    THE   HILLS. 

answer  is  not  far  to  seek.  Whatever  else 
may  .  follow*;,  ;otjr'  primal  object  is  to  bring  to 
gether  from  the  many  poems  of  a  great  author 
a  few  which  £re  so  marked  by  distinctive  char 
acteristics  derived  from  the  region  of  peculiar 
and  intense  individuality  in  which  they  were 
written,  that  they  form  a  class  by  themselves. 
The  purpose  in  annotating  these  poems  is  this: 
while  most  of  them  are  now  precious  posses 
sions  of  all  English-speaking  peoples,  they  were 
local  in  their  inception  and  development.  A 
description  of  the  scenery  which  helped  to  in 
spire  them,  with  a  narration  of  the  circum 
stances  which  led  to  their  writing,  and  of  those 
which  attended  their  only  public  delivery  in 
their  author's  living  voice,  may  therefore  en 
able  the  reader  to  enjoy,  in  addition  to  the 
inherent  charms  of  the  verse,  something  of  that 
indescribable,  and  in  a  degree  evanescent, 
sparkle  and  flavor  which  enchanted  those  who 
listened  to  its  silver-toned  enunciation  fresh 
from  the  poet's  heart  and  lips,  while  their  own 
sympathies  were  attuned  to  harmony  with  what 
they  heard  by  accompaniments  that  we  shall 
endeavor  to  reproduce  in  such  measure  as  we 
may. 

If,  in  pursuing  the  purposes  expressed,  there 
shall  seem  to  be  a  claim  in  behalf  of  the  town 
of  Pittsfield  to  some  considerable  share  in  the 
honor  which  attaches  to  every  place  and  every 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  g 

institution  with  which  the  name  of  Oliver  Wen 
dell  Holmes  is  in  any  way  associated,  we  ap 
prehend  that  the  claim  will  be  made  good.  The 
ardent  expressions  of  his  regard  for  the  town, 
which  we  shall  quote  in  the  proper  connections, 
will  leave  no  doubt  that  if  he  could  himself  be 
conscious  of  such  claim,  he  would  fully  approve 
it,  imperfectly  as  it  may  be  urged  here;  as,  we 
believe,  all  who  have  a  right  to  represent  him 
will. 

Liberal  participation  in  the  heritage  of  honor 
left  by  Dr.  Holmes  would  be  accorded  to  Pitts- 
field,  even  if  her  claim  rested  solely  upon  the 
basis  that  he  wrote  the  beautiful  poems  in  this 
collection  under  the  influence  of  her  scenery 
and  of  life  associated  with  it,  and  that,  before 
he  committed  them  to  the  printer,  he  read 
them  before  large  assemblages  of  her  citizens 
and  others  gathered  with  them  on  grand  public 
occasions.  Something  of  this  appears  in  the 
general  collections  of  his  works;  but  some  of 
the  verses  inserted  here  are  not  included  in 
those  volumes;  and  others  do  not  clearly  in 
dicate  their  birthplace.  If,  however,  this  were 
otherwise,  it  would  not  fully  cover  Pittsfield's 
claim  upon  the  poet's  memory.  That  rests 
upon  a  broader  foundation,  as  we  shall  see. 

Students  of  Dr.  Holmes'  works  will  observe 
that,  in  striking  contrast  with  his  other  writ 
ings,  there  is  in  his  Berkshire  poems  no  allusion 


io  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

to  scientific  or  classic  lore,  save  a  playful  mention 
of  the  winged  steed  that  he  did  not  have,  as  he 
had  swapped  it  away  for  a  ploughman's  horse. 
Nor  is  there  much  of  the  humor  in  which  he 
excelled ;  although  it  laughs  in  two  or  three 
minor  pieces,  and  pretty  gayly  in  some  prefatory 
speeches.  But,  for  the  most  part,  all  is  Nature ; 
and  Nature  without  scientific  analysis,  as  she 
here  spreads  out  her  works  for  all  who,  like  Dr. 
Holmes,  have  eyes  to  see;  combined  with  the 
human  sympathies  which  left  nothing  which 
pertained  to  humanity  foreign  to  him.  A  terse 
writer  of  many  true  thoughts  says:  "Nature 
has  no  morbid  strain."  It  is  a  sentiment  that 
might  have  come  from  Dr.  Holmes  himself  as 
a  companion  line  to  that  in  his  Pittsfield  Ceme 
tery  poem:  "Cheerful  Nature  owns  no  mourn 
ing  flower."  He  remembered  both  these  traits 
in  Nature's  authorship  when  he  made  the  trans 
lations  of  her  works  that  his  Berkshire  poems 
essentially  are.  There  is  nothing  in  them  either 
morbid  or  gloomy. 

Said  Jean  Paul:  "To  describe  any  scene 
well,  the  poet  must  make  the  bosom  of  a  man 
his  camera  obscura.  Then  will  he  see  it  poeti 
cally."  Such  a  camera  Dr.  Holmes  used  in  all 
his  paintings  of  Berkshire  scenery.  And  thus 
it  was  that  the  outcome  of  what  he  saw  poeti 
cally  was  not  reserved  merely  for  lettered  read 
ers,  but  was  freely  mingled  with  the  associated 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  n 

mental  activities  of  men,  whether  that  activity 
manifested  itself  in  a  body  of  farmers,  the  fra 
ternal  alumni  of  his  alma  mater  or  a  whole  organ 
ized  community.  But  whether  his  verse  was 
addressed  to  a  learned,  an  unlearned,  or  a  mixed 
auditory,  his  perfect  accord  with  the  harmonies 
of  nature  and  his  fine  poetic  sense,  with  his 
all  controling  pure  taste,  made  it  intelligible 
to  and  enjoyable  by  all. 

Dr.  Holmes  had  those  rare  intellectual  gifts 
which,  possessed  as  he  possessed  them,  afford 
sure  touchstones  of  genius:  Capacity  for  great, 
beautiful,  and  true  thought,  with  a  faultless 
method  of  expressing  it;  both  the  thought  and 
the  expression  of  it  being  peculiar  to  himself; 
modeled  upon  no  other  author  or  school  of 
authors;  and  transcending,  not  only  the  com 
mon  level  of  authordom,  but  its  elevations  con 
spicuous  enough  to  be  observable.  We  speak 
of  genius  in  the  abstract,  and  perhaps  have  a 
fairly  correct  idea  of  it,  as  a  congenital  endow 
ment  of  some  few  favored  minds  with  powers, 
exceeding  those  of  mere  talent,  for  life-work 
to  which  it  irresistibly  impels  them.  But  in 
dividual  genius  is  unique,  and  therefore  is  to 
be  studied  individually.  A  clever  biographer 
says:  "The  intellect  of  Holmes,  though  mani 
festing  many  strongly  marked  attributes,  eludes 
all  tests,  preserves  its  individuality,  and  re 
mains  unclassified  among  original  elements." 


12  THE   POET  AMONG    THE   HILLS. 

True ;  but  it  does  not  follow  that  the  products 
of  these  attributes  cannot  be  classified.  In 
deed  they  classify  themselves.  The  genius  of 
Dr.  Holmes  has  many  sides;  and  it  is  not  for 
us  to  attempt  an  analysis  even  of  that  which 
was  turned  toward  Berkshire.  He,  however, 
would  be  a  singular  reader,  who  should  enjoy 
a  favorite  class  of  the  poems  of  a  favorite 
author  for  half  a  century  without  gaining 
some  impression  of  what  it  was  that  charmed 
him. 

In  the  light  of  such  an  impression,  the  ruling 
quality  in  Dr.  Holmes'  Berkshire  poems  is  their 
entire  naturalness.  It  is  Nature  herself  that 
breathes  through  each  and  every  line.  While 
reading  them  we  feel  that  what  we  enjoy  was 
as  much  an  "elixir  of  delight"  for  him  when  he 
received  it  from  her  as  it  is  for  us  when  we  re 
ceive  it  from  him.  We  need  no  analysis  to  as 
sure  us  that  it  is  the  free  uncontaminated  outflow 
from  a  full  and  pure  fountain,  and  not  an  in 
different  stream  from  a  force-pump. 

And  yet  the  genius  of  Dr.  Holmes,  as  dis 
played  in  his  Berkshire  poems — which  alone 
concern  us  here — had  distinctive,  although  not 
obtrusively  startling  elements.  They  were  very 
like  the  characteristics  which  a  great  critic 
ascribes  admiringly  to  a  German  biographical 
writer  whom  he  esteems  of  extraordinary  merit. 
"  The  poet  must  express  his  inmost  qualities  in 


THE   POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  13 

his  verse ;  and  the  noblest  poetry  in  all  its  va 
ried  but  harmonious  elements  is  the  visible  soul 
of  the  noblest  man."  And,  with  the  slight 
modifications  that  we  make,  what  Carlyle  says 
of  his  admired  author  will  apply  equally  well 
to  the  Berkshire  poems  of  Dr.  Holmes,  and  to 
himself  as  revealed  in  them.  In  style  these 
poems  are  distinguished  for  clearness  and  grace 
of  method,  and  for  comprehensibility.  In  mat 
ter  they  point  to  an  author  of  affectionate  and 
exquisitely  sympathetic  nature;  courteous  but 
truthful ;  precise  in  expression ;  of  quick  appre 
hension;  of  just,  extensive,  often  deep  and  fine, 
insight.  This  delineates  very  accurately  the 
characteristics  of  Dr.  Holmes  in  his  relations 
to  Berkshire  as  a  poet.  Nevertheless,  coinci 
dence  with  the  intellectual  constitution  of  Varn- 
hagen  von  Ense  does  not  in  the  least  militate 
against  the  uniqueness  of  the  American's  ge 
nius  ;  for  in  its  processes  and  their  fruit,  the 
brain-work  of  the  two  men  differed  as  essentially 
as  biography  differs  from  poetry. 

It  is  no  part  of  our  purpose  to  attempt  the 
slightest  critical  analysis  of  these  Berkshire 
poems.  Even  could  such  an  attempt  succeed, 
the  success  would  be  out  of  all  place  here.  The 
mourner  might  as  well  accompany  the  wreath 
he  lays  upon  the  tomb  hallowed  by  affection,  or 
the  lover  the  bouquet  he  sends  his  mistress, 
with  a  botanical  classification  of  its  flowers. 


14  THE   POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

That  charm  of  poetry  which  penetrates  all 
hearts  open  to  the  entrance  of  pure  pleasures, 
and  is  enjoyed  without  conscious  volition,  is 
beyond  analysis;  and,  even  if  some  grim  sage 
could  resolve  such  subtile  and  ethereal  joys  into 
their  ultimate  elements,  it  would  not  enable 
him  to  reproduce  the  God-given  odor  of  the 
rose  or  the  inspired  melody  of  the  song,  nor 
would  his  learned  exposition  add  one  whit  to 
any  soul's  delight  in  them. 

Every  word  in  Dr.  Holmes'  verses  has  its 
meaning,  and  every  sentence  makes  its  impres 
sion.  The  meaning  is  clear  and  the  impression 
is  distinct — often  incisive— without  the  aid  of 
any  interpreter;  but  those  familiar  with  the 
scenes  amid  which,  and  the  themes  upon  which, 
he  wrote  may  recognize  meanings  and  receive 
impressions  hidden  from  readers  not  thus  fa 
vored.  To  extend  this  familiarity  more  widely 
is  the  leading  object  of  the  annotation  in  this 
volume.  We  trust  that  it  will  not  be  looked 
upon  as  an  attempt  to  gild  refined  gold;  but 
rather  with  charitable  eyes,  as  only  an  effort 
to  expose  a  little  more  of  it  to  view.  Some 
body  has  said  that  notes  to  a  fine  poem  are  like 
an  anatomical  lecture  on  a  savory  joint;  but 
surely  the  most  succulent  and  savory  joint  may 
be  accompanied  by  condiments,  provided  that 
they  develop,  and  do  not  mar  or  obscure,  its 
native  flavor.  And  any  good  housewife  will 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  15 

tell  us  that  some  attention  ought  to  be  paid  to 
the  table  on  which  it  is  served. 

There  is  a  side  lesson  taught  by  the  wealth 
of  poetry  which  this  collection  presents  as  the 
product  of  a  brief  interval  of  the  poet's  life. 
An  old  man  in  his  moody  moments,  looking 
back  over  years  which  have  vanished,  leaving 
little  to  represent  them,  may  be  tempted  to  say 
with  the  Portuguese  poet : 

What  is  life?    A  wild  illusion, 
Fleeting  shadow;  fond  delusion, 
Whose  most  steadfast  substance  seems 
But  the  dream  of  other  dreams. 

But  one  who  has  frequently  to  write  even  of 
commonplace  lives  and  in  the  biographical- 
dictionary  style,  learns  how  much  that  is  worth 
the  doing  is  often  scattered  along  very  ordinary 
careers,  often  of  much  less  than  three-score 
years  and  ten.  But  when  he  contemplates  the 
achievements,  of  deathless  fame  and  priceless 
value,  that  were  compressed  into  a  fraction 
of  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes'  seven  summers  in 
Pittsfield,  he  is  struck  with  amazement.  The 
study  affords  a  striking  object-lesson  for  the 
young;  for  although  powers  of  achievement  like 
those  of  Dr.  Holmes  are  rare,  it  is  no  reason, 
because  our  one,  two,  or  three  talents  do  not 
mount  to  the  ten  called  genius,  that  they  should 
be  left  to  run  to  waste.  They  need  the  more 
cultivation. 


1 6  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

And  yet  another  ground  for  this  compilation, 
if  another  is  needed,  will  be  found  in  the  hope 
that  it  may  render  some  of  Pittsfield's  own  peo 
ple  more  familiar  with  the  poems  comprised  in 
it,  and  incidentally  lead  to  a  wider  acquaintance 
with  all  the  works  of  their  author, — to  the  great 
advantage  of  their  taste  in  literature,  as  well  as 
in  other  matters.  Nor  will  it  be  of  small  value, 
if,  by  giving  any  an  intelligent  and  clear  appre 
ciation  of  the  great  poet's  relations  to  their  town, 
it  shall  at  once  strengthen  and  make  more 
rational  their  pride  in  it.  And  Southey,  in  the 
passage  from  his  "  Doctor, "  which  we  have 
made  our  initial  motto,  shows  that  pride  in 
one's  own  home-town  is  a  most  excellent  thing 
to  have,  even  if  it  leads  to  an  estimate  of  its 
merits  so  undue  and  so  disproportionate  in  com 
parison  with  the  rest  of  the  world,  that  it  makes 
us  appear  rustic  or  provincial  in  cosmopolitan 
eyes. 

And  this  brings  us  back  to  our  primary 
motor:  Pittsfield's  home  pride,  and  the  justifi 
cation  of  it  by  Dr.  Holmes'  legacy  of  honor,  and 
otherwise. 

Pittsfield,  through  the  best  representatives  of 
its  local  pride,  piques  itself  upon  its  complete 
ness.  Now,  completeness  is  essentially  different 
from  perfection.  Holy  Scripture  declares  that 
"There  is  none  perfect:  no,  not  one."  And  he 
must  indeed  be  "  a  blinded  bigot"  of  a  skeptic, 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  17 

who,  living  among  men,  disputes  this  averment, 
even  if  he  denies  its  divine  inspiration.  There 
is  no  perfect  man.  To  be  sure,  we  do  now  and 
then,  in  biographical  histories,  or  perhaps,  at 
wide  intervals,  in  living  examples,  come  upon 
a  tolerably  complete  man:  one  whose  physical, 
intellectual,  and  moral  natures  all  closely  ap 
proximate  perfection.  But  inevitably  in  some 
unguarded  moment  some  little  flaw  or  frailty 
betrays  the  infirmity  of  humanity  even  at  its 
best.  In  the  common  mass  of  men,  the  perfec 
tion  of  an  individual  in  one  quality  or  in  one 
ability  is  most  often  attained  by  the  sacrifice  of 
even  moderate  excellence  in  every  other.  We 
have  somewhere  read  a  story  in  which  the  scene 
was  laid  a  couple  of  centuries,  more  or  less,  in 
the  future,  and  in  a  country  where  triumphant 
socialism  had  subjected  every  thing  to  the  con 
trol  of  a  truly  paternal  government.  Men  and 
women  were  married,  being  officially  paired 
after  an  official  examination  to  determine  their 
fitness  for  each  other.  The  children  born  to 
this  officially  authorized  union  were  trained  by 
government  officials  for  the  special  occupation 
and  position  in  the  world  to  which  they  had 
been  officially  assigned  in  babyhood,  after  a 
phrenological  inspection — also  official — to  ascer 
tain  for  what,  in  official  opinion,  wise  Nature 
created  each  particular  little  one.  Under  this 
official  process  all  the  mental  and  physical 


1 8  THE   POET  AMONG    THE   HILLS. 

faculties  of  a  child  which  his  officially  pre 
determined  station  in  life  demanded  were  per 
fectly  developed.  All  the  rest  dwindled  to 
uselessness.  Thus  the  fabled  state  had  perfect 
blacksmiths  and  barristers,  clergymen  and  car 
penters,  hair-dressers  and  hod-carriers,  and  so 
on  to  the  end  of  the  chapter;  but  not  one  single 
complete  man. 

Now,  even  as  men  are,  so  are  the  towns  which 
they  build,  inhabit,  and,  for  one  reason  or  an 
other,  love  and  take  pride  in;  that  is,  unless 
they  are  of  the  class  without  a  tap-root,  against 
whom  Southey's  "  Doctor"  sharply  warns  us. 
There  may  be  towns  and  cities  in  which  a  too 
predominant  devotion  to  one  pursuit  in  life  has 
had  an  effect  similar  to  that  of  the  ideal  devel 
opment  and  repression  of  each  individual's 
natural  faculties  which  our  story-teller  paints 
as  the  logical  outcome  of  socialist  theories  of 
government.  These,  however,  are  rare  excep 
tions.  Either  from  natural  advantages,  well- 
directed  public  spirit,  personal  enterprise  and 
liberality,  or  a  confluence  of  streams  from  sev 
eral  of  these  fountain-heads  of  prosperity  and 
excellence,  most  American  towns  come  reason 
ably  near  to  perfection  in  more  than  one  or  two 
of  the  elements  which,  if  all  were  present  in 
like  degree,  would  constitute  what  might  be 
properly  called  completeness:  that  is,  a  com 
plete  circle  of  those  elements,  such  as  manu- 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  19 

factures  and  commerce,  with  the  means  and  the 
spirit  to  advance  them ;  healthfulness  with  the 
best  sanitary  provisions  to  retain  it;  a  culti 
vated  community,  with  schools,  libraries,  and 
other  facilities  for,  and  incitements  to,  further 
culture;  religious  institutions  adapted  to  vary 
ing  creeds  and  forms  of  worship;  noble  and 
beautiful  scenery ;  with  whatever  else  is  need 
ful  to  invite  and  satisfy  permanent  or  alternate 
residents,  as  well  as  those  who  seek  a  brief 
resort  for  health  or  pleasure. 

What  those  uncompromising  representatives 
and  champions  of  Pittsfield's  pride,  we  spoke  of 
awhile  ago,  claim  and  pique  themselves  upon 
in  behalf  of  their  idolized  town  is  this,  that  in 
it  the  circle  of  these  widely  varied  elements  of 
completeness,  and  of  others  cognate  to  them, 
is,  without  exception,  complete :  not  that  each 
or  any  of  them  is  complete  or  perfect  in  itself; 
but  that  the  good  town  is  distinguished  by  a 
fairly  close  approach  to  perfection  in  each  and 
is  steadily  advancing  toward  it  in  all  where 
Nature  admits  advance. 

Philosophic  Thomas  Carlyle  makes  an  asser 
tion  concerning  the  building  of  men's  habita 
tions  that  affords  a  parallel  to  the  Scriptural 
apothegm  regarding  their  own  moral  and  intel 
lectual  structure.  "Perfection,"  heavers,  "is 
unattainable.  No  carpenter  in  the  world  ever 
made  a  mathematically  accurate  right-angle; 


20  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

yet  all  carpenters  know  when  it  is  right  enough ; 
and  do  not  botch  their  work  and  lose  their 
wages  by  making  it  too  right."  Still  there  are 
many  right-angles  in  the  framework  of  a  house, 
and  if  most  of  them  do  not  closely  approximate 
mathematical  accuracy,  it  will  never  come  to 
completion.  Doubtless  what  Mr.  Carlyle  means 
is  a  legal  maxim  slightly  varied:  De  minimis 
lex  nature  non  ciiratur — The  law  of  nature  does 
not  concern  itself  about  trifles.  Nor  should 
men  trouble  themselves  about  trifling  errors*in 
their  own  work.  Nevertheless  even  approxi 
mate  perfection  is  not  likely  to  be  attained  in  a 
structure  of  an}'  kind  unless  the  absolute  is  kept 
in  view:  and  much  less  if  it  is  deliberately 
thrust' out  of  sight.  Strive  as  we  may,  there  is 
no  danger  of  getting  near  enough  to  perfection 
to  "botch  our  work." 

The  structure  of  a  town  is  very  like  that  of  a 
man.  It  has,  or  should  have,  body,  mind,  and 
soul ;  and  each  of  these  distinct  components 
needs  cultivation.  So  long  as  a  just  balance  is 
reserved,  we  need  not  fear  that  either  will  get 
too  much  of  it.  There  will  always  be  room  for 
more.  Better  so:  Who  but  a  drone  would  wish 
to  live  in  a  place  where  there  is  no  call  for 
effort,  or  even  strife,  to  make  it  better?  It 
would  be  insufferably  dull. 

Town?  city?  country?  Call  Pittsfield  which 
you  will;  for  us,  it  is  the  same  old  long-loved 


THE   POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  21 

town.  A  city  charter  does  not  change  its 
nature.  The  greater  portion  of  its  territory 
still  remains  quite  as  fit  for  a  quiet,  secluded 
country  home  as  any  rural  region  whatever; 
while  almost  all  the  rest  is  a  striking  example 
of  the  rus  in  urbe,  country  and  city  interpenetrat 
ing  each  other.  We  think  that,  on  the  whole, 
we  will  keep  to  the  stalwart  old  New  England 
word,  town;  under  which  Pittsfield,  like  so 
many  of  her  sister  Massachusetts  municipalities 
— and  conspicuously  among  them — has,  in  one 
way  or  another,  won  so  much  honor  that  it  may 
rightfully  be  called  glory. 

But  to  return:  There  is  one  element  in 
Pittsfield 's  circle  of  completeness  which  our  un 
compromising  ultraists  will  not,  under  any 
compulsion,  admit  to  fall  one  little  iota  short  of 
absolute  perfection.  This  is  her  scenery,  which, 
they  insist,  lacks  literally  nothing  that  inland 
landscape  can  have  to  make  it  altogether  en 
chanting.  This  is  a  trifle  extravagant.  Very 
critical  eyes  —  even  if  not  hypercritical  or 
sharpened  by  jealousy  as  our  enthusiasts  would 
be  likely  to  charge — very  critical  eyes  may  by 
close  scrutiny  detect  here  and  there  a  blot,  to 
sustain  Carlyle's  dictum  of  the  impossible,  even 
when  applied  to  the  wealth  of  color,  grace,  and 
grandeur  that  enriches  the  valley  here  em 
bosomed  among  the  symmetrical  dome-crowned 
hills  of  Berkshire.  And  yet  this  extravagant 


22  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

claim  is  so  plausibly  and  pleasantly  like  truth 
that  an  observer  at  all  sensitive  to  Nature's 
loveliness  will  find  it  in  his  heart  rather  to 
sympathize  with  than  harshly  to  utterly  reject 
it :  especially  if  his  visit  shall  happen  on  one  of 
those  glorious  summer  or  autumn  days,  when 
the  foam  on  the  waterfalls,  bound  though  they 
be  in  servitude  to  mill-wheels,  is  "excellently 
bright,''  and  the  hillside  denudings  of  the  coal- 
burner's  ax,  though  rough  as  his  unshaven 
face,  are  encircled  with  undulating  curves  of 
a  livelier,  richer  verdure  than  that  of  the  sur 
rounding  unbroken  foliage;  curves  that  often, 
on  a  November  or  December  night,  are  trans 
formed  into  serpentine  borders  of  living  fire,  as 
the  dry  brushwood,  heaped  along  the  edges  of 
the  rude  openings,  is  set  aflame  by  a  chance 
spark  or  by  a  woodman's  match. 

But  let  pass  perfection.  What  have  we,  im 
perfect  mortals,  to  do  with  it  anyhow?  Pitts- 
field's  scenery  is  at  least  quite  good  enough  for 
the  best  of  us;  and  the  best  of  us  best  appreci 
ate  and  enjoy  it.  To  its  thus  appreciatively 
enjoyed  charms,  the  town's  parks  and  its  broad 
streets,  park-like  by  virtue  of  their  wide  fringes 
of  grass-carpeted  courtyards,  and  their  noble 
colonnades  of  overhanging  elms  and  maples, 
contribute  not  a  little;  but  very  much  more  is 
due  to  its  magnificent  outlook  in  every  direc 
tion,  to  a  boundary  of  mountain  ranges  sur- 


THE   POET  AMONG    THE   HILLS.  23 

passed  by  none  in  their  grace  of  contour  and  the 
majesty  of  their  grand  curvilinear  sweep  around 
the    horizon.     Standing    on    any    considerable 
elevation  near  the  main  streets,    such   as   the 
platform-roof  of  the  Academy  of  Music  or  the 
tower  of  the  Maplewood  Gymnasium,  the  spec 
tator  finds  himself,  more  than  a  thousand  feet 
above  the  sea  level,  in  the  center  of  an  ellipti 
cal  valley  fifty  miles  long,  with  the  proportions 
in   area   which    architects    love    to    give   their 
choicest  structures,  while  the  symmetry  with 
which  point  answers  to  opposing  point  exceeds 
the  attainment  of  art.     Within  its  green  and 
graceful  encircling  walls  lies  cradled  a  rolling 
country  of  minor  hills  and  valleys;    with,  here 
and  there,  a  fertile  plain.     A  hundred  lakelets, 
mostly  in  the  low  lands,  but  sometimes  on  the 
very  hill-tops,  dot  the  wide  landscape  with  the 
gleam  of  their  dimpling  waters;  while  frequent 
towns,  villages,  fine  farm-houses,  and  not  a  few 
costly  country-seats  endow  it  with  human  life. 
Through  this  superb  upland   valley   flows,   re 
nowned  in  song  and  story,  the  "blue,  winding 
Housatonic;"    receiving  in  its  myriad  graceful 
meanders   the   silvery  tribute  of   unnumbered 
rills     and     streamlets.     Upon    this    vision    of 
beauty   looks    down,    from    the    northernmost 
border  of  Massachusetts,  Greylock,  its  loftiest 
summit,    in    more    than   mountain   majesty  — 
often   of   a   summer    morning,    "  cloud-girdled 


24  THE   POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

on  his  purple  throne;"  adding  grandeur  to 
grace. 

Of  course  all  this  is  not  visible  to  our  specta 
tor  in  every  detail;  but  what  he  does  see  will 
enable  him  to  comprehend  the  whole.  And 
what  he  will  note  as  a  pleasant  peculiarity  is 
that,  multitudinous  as  the  mountains  are  around 
him,  not  one  is  oppressively  near. 

Features  like  these,  thus  combined,  go  far 
toward  constituting  perfect  scenery ;  and,  ad 
mitting  the  impossibility  of  perfections,  let  it 
also  be  admitted  that  this  "  borders  on  the  im 
possible. "  If,  however,  Pittsfield  scenery  had 
been  undeniably  perfect  and  complete  in  all 
that  meets  the  eye,  those  who  are  now  its  most 
loyal  and  ardent  worshipers  would  have  been 
first  to  acknowledge  that  something  was  yet 
lacking,  had  there  not  been  associated  with  it 
a  record  of  heroic  and  patriotic  men  and  deeds; 
and  had  it  not  received  a  soul  from  the  living 
and  loving  presence  of  men  and  women  of  ge 
nius,  and  the  magic  touch  of  their  pens.  With 
out  such  accessories  no  affluence  of  Nature's 
loveliness  suffices  a  landscape.  We  need  not 
recount  the  town's  brave  and  patriotic  action 
from  its  earliest  to  its  latest  days,  whenever  the 
country's  peril  has  called  for  it,  nor  recall  the 
names  of  the  patriots  and  heroes  who  have  given 
luster  to  its  annals.  Enough  of  both  for  our 
present  purpose  is  embalmed  in  the  country's 


THE   POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  25 

history.  Nor  should  we  speak  specifically  of 
the  men  and  women  of  letters  who  have  helped 
to  give  it  character  and  fame,  were  it  not  that 
comparatively  few  readers  are  familiar  with 
literary  biographical  history;  and  did  not  what 
we  shall  say  lead  up  to  and  illustrate  our  ulti 
mate  subject.  As  it  is,  we  shall  confine  our 
selves  to  little  more  than  cursory  mention  of  a 
very  few  of  the  very  many  whose  mere  names 
would  call  up  charmed  thoughts  for  cultured 
loiterers  along  the  delightful  avenues  that, 
branching  in  every  direction  from  Pittsfield's 
beautiful  and  historic  little  central  park,  stretch 
away  into  regions  of  ever-varying  landscape, 
revealing  at  every  turn  what  poetic  Governor 
Andrew  so  happily  termed  "  the  delicious  sur 
prises  of  Berkshire." 

There  is  a  kind  of  commonplace  people  who 
have  an  unaccountable  but  inveterate  hankering 
to  get  where  commonplace  people  are  out  of 
place.  Their  most  preposterous,  but  seemingly 
irresistible  proclivity  is,  to  inflict  names  as  com 
monplace  as  they  can  pick  out  from  their 
commonplace  observation  upon  localities,  and 
whatever  else  is  as  far  from  commonplace,  as 
the  commonplace  very  often  is  from  common- 
sense.  It  is  not  much  to  the  credit  of  a  com 
munity  with  plenty  of  good  taste  that  its  list 
less  indifference  often  permits  this  unhappy 
craze  to  have  its  wicked  way:  for  it  is  wicked 


26  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

to  soil  with  stupidity  what  Nature  has  made 
beautiful  and  genius  has  hallowed.  But  such 
soiling  is  permitted.  And  thus  it  happened 
that  One  of  the  most  superb  avenues  which  en- 
ti'ce  the  lover  of  Nature's  loveliness  into  the 
romantic  regions  around — and  one  with  the 
proudest  associations — became  "  Middle  Street," 
for  the,  to  a  commonplace  mind,  good  and 
sufficient  reason  that  it  is,  beyond  all  ques 
tion,  the  middle  road  of  three  between  Pittsfield 
and  Lenox. 

This  avenue  affords  a  superb  "drive,"  com 
manding  broad  and  noble  views  of  mountains, 
hills,  and  valleys,  and  of  the  Housatonic  River, 
which  it  crosses.  The  same,  excepting  the 
river,  is,  however,  true  of 'all  Pittsfield,  and  of 
most  Berkshire  roads.  But  this  Middle  Street 
— which,  thanks  to  some  reformers  of  taste,  we 
shall  not  be  again  forced  to  call  by  that  stupid 
name — this  Middle  Street — this  ci-devant  Middle 
Street  somewhat  excels  all  its  rivals  in  some 
regards  of  which  commonplace  people  know 
little,  comprehend  less,  and  care  not  at  all. 
There  are  pleasant,  patriotic,  quaint,  curious, 
and  romantic  traditions  associated  with  one  or 
another  of  all  these  rides  and  walks;  but  this 
middle  road  to  Lenox  has  the  advantage  in  this, 
that  it  was  the  earliest  highway  in  the  town 
ship;  being  part  of  the  first  which  crossed 
Berkshire  from  the  Connecticut  boundary-line 


THE   POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  27 

on  the  south  to  that  of  Vermont  on  the  north. 
Even  before  the  corning  of  the  white  man  the 
Mohegans  had  a  trail  nearly  coincident  with  it, 
arid  more  of  their  relics  have  been  found  in  its 
vicinity  than  in  any  other  section  of  Pittsfield. 
It  must  also  have  been  the  pathway  of  the  early- 
settlers  from  the  Connecticut  valley;  and  the 
magnates  among  them  clustered  so  thickly  an 
its  neighborhood  as  to  make  it  out  of  question 
the  court  end  of  the  young  town.  Here  and 
now,  however,  its  predominant  interest  for  us 
lies  in  the  fact  that  on  it  was  the  summer-home 
of  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  and  that  of  his  an 
cestors  for  three  generations  before  him.  •  Of 
this  we  shall  have  occasion  to  speak  more  at 
large  in  another  connection.  It  is  sufficient  to 
say  here  that  the  death  of  Dr.  Holmes  revived 
attention  to  these  facts;  intensifying  the  repug 
nance  to  the  insipidity  of  the  old  name-in-  the 
minds  of  citizens  of  culture  and  influence,  at 
whose  instance  the  City  Council  changed  it  to 
Holmes  Road.  And  Holmes  Road  it  will  be 
while  Pittsfield  streets  have  names:  adding,  by 
the  associations  which  it  will  recall,  a  new 
charm  to  an  already  charming  region;  and  giv 
ing  the  city  a  new  memorial  of  the  poet's  life 
in  it. 

But  let  us  resume  our  purpose  of  citing  a  few 
examples  of  authors,  besides  Dr.  Holmes,  dis 
tinguished  in  the  higher  walks  of  literary  com- 


28  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

position  and  eloquent  utterance,  who  have 
helped  to  invest  Pittsfield  with  interest  for  the 
admirers  of  genius  and  the  lovers  of  literature. 
Naturally  the  first  which  comes  to  mind  is  Dr. 
Holmes'  nearest  neighbor,  of  the  guild  of  let 
ters —  Herman  Melville.  A  gentle  elevation 
on  the  west  side  of  Holmes  Road,  a  few  rods 
south  of  its  namesake's  summer  villa,  is  crowned 
by  a  spacious,  old-fashioned  gambrel-roofed 
mansion,  rich  in  the  memories  of  more  than  a 
century.  Mr.  Melville  must  have  known  it 
well  in  his  youth,  when  he  was  in  the  family  of 
his  uncle,  Major  Thomas  Melville,  in  the  still 
more  historic  old  mansion  now  known  as  Broad- 
hall  ;  and  was  master  of  a  district  school  so 
located  that  his  nearest  way  to  it  was  through 
the  farm  attached  to  the  gambrel-roofed  house  of 
Holmes  Road.  In  1848,  shortly  after  his  mar 
riage,  and  the  brilliant  success  of  his  first  books, 
"Omoo"  and  "Typee,"  he  passed  the  summer 
in  the  same  old  broad-hailed  mansion,*  which 

*  In  calling  this  old  mansion  "Broadhall"  here  and 
elsewhere,  we  deliberately,  for  the  sake  of  convenience 
and  intelligibility,  commit  an  anachronism,  rather  than 
change  the  name  with  every  change  of  owners,  which 
is  the  country  wont.  It  was  named  some  three  years 
after  Melville,  Longfellow,  and  ex-President  Tyler  were 
boarders  in  it ;  and  in  this  wise  :  It  had  then  become 
the  residence  of  Mr.  J.  R.  Morewood,  and  at  a  little 
party  in  its  parlors — not  by  any  means  "all  silent,"  it 
was  declared  that  a  mansion  with  so  much  character 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  29 

was  then  a  boarding-house,  where,  among  other 
agreeable  fellow-boarders,  he  found  the  poet 
Longfellow  with  his  wife  and  children.  This 
summer  at  Broadhall  reviving  his  acquaint 
ance,  with  its  neighbor,  the  old  farm-house  of 
Holmes  Road,  he  bought  it,  and  it  was  his  well- 
loved  home  for  many  years.  He  named  the 
place"  Arrowhead;"  having,  in  his  first  plowing 
of  its  fields,  turned  up  one  of  "  the  pointed  flints 
that  left  the  fatal  bow"  of  the  Mohegan  warrior 
or  hunter.  He  found  the  mansion  a  spacious 
gambrel-roofed  house  of  two  stories;  he  made 
it  a  house  of  many  stories;  writing  in  it  almost 
all  his  later  works.  Among  these  the  most 
locally  interesting,  though  far  from  the  most 
widely  known,  is  the  "  Piazza  Tales;"  so  titled 
because  its  stories  were  built  upon  a  piazza 
which  he  added  to  the  north  end  of  the  house 
where  it  overlooks  a  noble  landscape,  extend 
ing  through  a  picturesque  vista  of  twenty  miles, 

ought  to  have  a  significant  name.  The  selection  of 
one  from  the  variety  proposed  was  left  to  chance.  Each 
proposer  wrote  his  proposed  name  on  a  slip  of  paper 
and  dropped  it  in  a  basket ;  the  first  drawn  from  it.  to 
be  accepted.  This  chanced  to  be  "Broadhall,"  which 
was  written  by  Herman  Melville.  The  selection  was 
so  "pat"  that  it  was  hailed  with  unanimous  approval; 
although  some  serious,  or  rather  merry,  suspicion  was 
expressed  that  chance — lest  she  might  prove  Miss  Chance 
— had  a  judicious  adviser  in  the  person  of  some  one  of 
the  ladies  of  the  mansion. 


30  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

to..Greylock, — to  Greylock,  ever  companionably 
present  in  Berkshire,  whatever  miles  may  in 
tervene.  A  New  England  farm-house  so  vener 
able  as  that  at  Arrowhead  could  not  fail  of  its 
huge  old  elephantine  chimney;  and  Mr.  Mel 
ville  made  it  the  hero  of  one  of  his  most  curious 
and  characteristic  sketches,  "  My  Chimney  and 
I."  .  He  regarded  it  as  the  overbearing  tyrant 
of  his  home,  as  he,  himself,  very  decidedly  was 
not.: 

.'Mr.  Melville  was  extravagantly  fond  of  ex-, 
cursions  among  the  Berkshire  hills  and  valleys; 
a  well-preserved  relic  of  his  early  passion  for 
far. wider  wanderings.  His  rambles  were  never 
solitary,  and  rarely  with .  a  single  companion 
unless  they  involved  more  than  one  day's  tramp 
•on.  foot.  He  rather  delighted  to  lead  parties  of 
kindred  tastes;  often  including  guests  of  note 
from  abroad,  and  always  some  ladies  of  his  own 
and  intimately  friendly  families.  In  such  fel 
lowship  he  climbed  to  every  alluring  hill-top, 
and  explored  every  picturesque  corner  and  hid 
den  nook  that  he  could  hear  of,  or  find  by  seek 
ing.  Picnic  revelers  may  be  sure  that  whatever 
romantic  camping-ground  they  choose  in  Berk 
shire,  Herman  Melville  has  been  there  before 
them,  and  that  its  echoes  have  rung  with  the 
laughter  and  the  merry  shouts  of  his  rollicking 
followers,  From  many  of  these  resorts  he  drew 
pictures  for  his  tales;  among  others,  from  3al- 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  31 

ance  Rock,  Potter  Mountain — a  favorite  with 
him — and  the  grand  rounded  summit — about 
two  miles  southwest  from  his  residence  and 
from  that  of  Dr.  Holmes — which  he  named 
October  Mountain  for  the  gorgeousness  of  its 
autumn  tints. 

An  incident  of  singular  interest  marked  one 
of  his  excursions;  and  though  it  happened  be 
tween  Stockbridge  and  Great  Barrington,  it 
will  bring  us  back  to  Holmes  Road.  We  con 
stantly  need  something  to  bring  us  back  from 
the  wanderings  to  which  we  are  enticed  by 
Berkshire's  beauties. 

In  1849,  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  came  to  live 
awhile  in  the  little  red  cottage,  which  he  made 
famous,  on  the  border  of  the  Stockbridge  Bowl 
• — the  Sedgwick-Sigourney  name  for  what  the 
learned  map-makers  call  Lake  Mahekanituck — 
some  seven  miles  south  of  Arrowhead.  Mel 
ville  had  written  for  The  New  York  Literary 
World,  edited  by  his  friends  the  brothers 
Duyckinck,  a  most  appreciative  and  singularly 
sympathetic  review  of  "The  Scarlet  Letter." 
This  article  was  not  only  appreciative  of,  but 
appreciated  by,  Hawthorne.  Yet  when  the  two 
authors  came  to  be  neighbors,  as  neighborhood 
is  reckoned  in  the  country,  there  was  at  first 
a  certain  shyness  in  their  intercourse;  probably 
from  the  fear  of  each  lest  he  should  seem  to  the 
other  to  presume  too  much  upon  what  he  had 


32  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

said  and  done.  It  was  a  sensitiveness  natural 
to  the  pride  of  genius;  but  so  shadowy  and 
irksome  a  barrier  could  not  long  keep  apart 
men  so  formed  for  fellowship.  It  was  broken 
down  during  an  excursion  when  the  two  were 
driven  by  a  sudden,  severe,  and  prolonged  sum 
mer  shower  to  take  refuge  together  in  a 
narrow  recess  on  the  west  side  of  Bryant's  Mon 
ument  Mountain.  There,  undisturbed  by  the 
tumult  of  the  elements,  the  two  great  original 
thinkers  and  writers,  neither  of  them  "  made 
altogether  by  the  common  pattern,"  learned  to 
know  each  other;  mind  to  mind  and  heart  to 
heart.  Thenceforward  their  friendship  was 
that  of  kindred  though  diverse  intellects;  and 
of  faith  and  feeling  in  which  they  were  not 
diverse. 

The  intercourse  thus  founded  extended  to  the 
families  of  the  two  friends.  Hawthorne's  biog 
rapher  tells  us  that  when  Melville  was  ap 
proaching  the  cottage  by  the  lake,  a  joyous 
shout  went  up:  "Here  comes  Typee!"  the  pet 
name  they  had  given  him.  With  Mr.  Melville's 
free,  hearty,  and  jovial,  although  always  high 
bred  and  dignified,  manner,  this  might  have 
been  expected;  but  Mr.  Hawthorne,  also,  could 
throw  off  his  reserve  for  a  roll  and  a  frolic  with 
children ;  and  he  was  as  welcome  at  Arrowhead 
as  Melville  was  at  the  lakeside.  It  is  not  this 
chiefly,  however,  that  brings  us  back  to  Holmes 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  33 

Road.  As  we  learn  from  the  same  biographer, 
one  who  passed  over  it  in  1849-50  might  some 
times  have  enjoyed  a  rare  spectacle.  If  it 
chanced  to  be  in  summer  or  early  autumn,  the 
great  barn-doors  of  the  Arrowhead  barn  would 
have  been  wide  open,  and  if  he  cast  a  glance 
within  he  might  have  seen  the  two  friends, 
reclining  on  piles  of  fragrant  new-mown  hay, 
and  basking  in  the  genial  in-pouring  rays  of 
the  sun,  while  they  held  high  converse  on  the 
mysteries  and  revelations  of  the  world  and  those 
who  people  it. 

We  pass  from  Holmes  Road,  the  Canoe 
Meadows,  Arrowhead,  and  their  memories,  to 
courtly  East  Street,  Elm  Knoll  and  the  "  House 
of  the  Old  Clock  on  the  Stairs;"  with  the  mem 
ories  they  recall. 

The  story  which  locates  in  "the  old-fash 
ioned  country-seat"  of  Elm  Knoll  the  ancient 
timepiece  celebrated  in  Longfellow's  exquisite 
poem  has  been  so  often  told  that  it  almost 
seems  trite;  and  yet  a  brief,  exact  restatement 
may  please  many  readers  of  the  soulful  verses. 

Very  early  in  the  century  now  drawing  to  a 
close,  the  old  mansion,  even  then  not  unstoried, 
became  the  residence  of  Thomas  Gold,  a  law 
yer  of  some  note,  and  a  man  of  wealth  as  wealth 
was  then  counted  in  Berkshire.  His  daughter, 
Maria  Theresa,  became  the  wife  of  Hon.  Nathan 
Appleton,  a  Boston  gentleman  of  culture  and 
3 


34  THE   POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

distinction.  After  Mr.  Gold's  death,  the  home 
stead,  although  the  property  and  home  of  his 
widow  while  she  lived,  was  the  summer  resi 
dence  of  the  Appleton  family.  Mrs.  Gold,  like 
all  the  ladies  of  the  Gold-Appleton  connection, 
was  remarkable  for  dignity,  grace,  and  kindli 
ness  of  manner.  Her  intellectual  character, 
based  on  good  native  abilities,  the  best  home 
education  the  country  then  afforded,  and  the 
highest  principles,  had  been  broadened  and 
refined  by  European  travel.  Her  relations  with 
the  Appleton  family  must  have  been  most 
agreeable. 

After  a  most  romantic  wooing,  the  poet 
Longfellow  "  won  the  heart  and  hand"  of 
Nathan  Appleton 's  daughter,  Frances  Eliza 
beth;  as  one  of  Mr.  Longfellow's  biographers 
states,  "  while  she  was  spending  a  summer  in 
Pittsfield. "  We  are  not  quite  sure  of  that.  But, 
at  any  rate,  they  were  married  at  Boston,  July 
13,  1843,  and  the  last  and  longest  of  their  three 
wedding  tours  was  to  visit  the  bride's  relatives 
and  friends  in  Pittsfield,  where  they  lingered 
until  late  in  August.  Then  the  poet  first  saw 
the  old  clock  at  the  head  of  the  broad  flight  of 
stairs  leading  from  the  spacious  entrance-hall 
of  the  Gold-Appleton  mansion.  He  did  not, 
however,  begin  to  write  the  poem  which  has 
made  it  famous  until  November  12,  1845,  when 
its  memory  was  recalled  by  a  passage  in  the 


HENRY   W.  LONGFELLOW 

In  1844. 


"  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  35 

writings  of  Bridaine,  an  old  French  missionary; 
which  also  furnished  the  refrain,  "  Forever, 
never!  Never,  forever" — "  Toujours^  jamais ! 
Jamais,  toujours  /"  The  poem  at  once  attained 
remarkable  popularity,  which  half  a  century 
has  increased  rather  than  diminished.  And  the 
frequent  allusions  to  it  in  its  author's  diary 
show  that  it  was  as  much  a  favorite  with  him 
as  it  was  with  his  readers.  The  marvelous  hold 
which  it  took  upon  multitudes  of  hearts  is  ex 
plained  by  the  elements  of  deep  thought  and 
feeling  which  combine  in  it.  The  refrain  sug 
gests  and  almost  expresses  the  emotions  that 
spring  irrepressibly  while  contemplating  a  time 
piece  of  past  fashion,  that  has  marked  the  hours 
as  they  grew  to  years,  and  the  years  as  they 
grew  to  generations  in  an  old  family  mansion. 
Consonant  with  this  voice  from  the  dial  is  the 
story,  which  the  poet  makes  the  ancient  time 
piece  tell,  of  life  and  of  death  in  that  mansion. 
This  story  has  its  counterpart  in  mansion  homes 
all  over  the  country  and  in  all  countries  of 
mansion  homes.  Nay;  in  all  essential  particu 
lars,  in  cottage  homes  as  well.  The  poet 
painted  his  passing  scenes  not  only  vividly,  but 
"  using  the  bosom  of  a  man  as  his  camera  ob- 
scuraf  and  the  result  was  what  always  happens 
when  poets  like  Holmes  and  Longfellow  adopt 
the  practice  commended  by  Jean  Paul.  Mr. 
Longfellow  must  himself  have  felt  that  he  had 


36  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

celebrated  the  mansion  as  much  at  least  as  the 
clock  on  its  stairs ;  for,  it  will  be  observed  that 
in  his  diary  he  rarely  speaks  of  the  old  clock 
simply,  but  almost  invariably  of  the  "  House 
of  the  Old  Clock."  The  clock  was  of  the  tall 
old-fashioned  kind  made  in  Pittsfield  and  Lanes- 
boro,  late  in  the  last  century  and  early  in  the 
present.  In  old  Berkshire  families  they  are 
preserved  as  precious  heirlooms,  while  strangers 
buy  them  at  high  prices  merely  as  "antiques." 
That  which  Longfellow  saw  in 

"The  old-fashioned  country  seat, 
Somewhat  back  from  the  village  street," 

and  made  eloquent  on  its  rostrum  there,  was, 
some  years  ago,  called  to  Boston,  where  it 
stands  in  the  hallway  of  the  Appleton  mansion. 
Professor  Longfellow  placed  one  of  the  same 
class  in  the  hall  of  the  Craigie  House,  his  Cam 
bridge  residence,  where  many  visitors  errone 
ously  supposed  it  to  be  the  original  clock  of 
the  poem. 

Mr.  Longfellow's  wedding  visit  to  Pittsfield 
was  followed  by  others.  The  most  interesting 
was  in  the  summer  of  1849,  which  he  spent  at 
the  Broadhall  boarding-house.  He  was  much 
impressed  by  the  beauty  of  the  neighboring 
South  Mountain,  and  the  variety  of  grand  views 
from  it.  He  took,  great  pleasure  with  his  chil 
dren  on  the  shores  of  the  charming  lakelet  in 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  tf 

the  Broadhall  grounds,  where  he  one  day  had 
an  adventure,  with  danger  enough  to  give  it 
zest.  The  little  ones  craved  some  beautiful 
pond-lilies  that  floated  on  the  surface  of  the 
lakelet — to  which  some  of  the  later  ladies  of 
Broadhall  gave  the  pet  name  of  "The  Lily- 
Bowl."  There  was  no  craft  near,  save  a  crazy, 
leaky  little  boat;  but,  like  the  devoted  father 
and  child-lover  he  was,  he  risked  himself  in  it 
to  secure  the  coveted  prize,  although  the  miser 
able  little  broken  shell  threatened  every  mo 
ment  to  sink  with  him.  He  tells  of  several 
pleasant  drives,  but  was  clearly  the  most  de 
lighted  with  an  afternoon  excursion  to  Roaring- 
Brook.  This  notable  mountain  streamlet  dashes 
down  a  romantic  gorge  in  the  west  side  of  Wash 
ington  Mountain, — a  summit  of  the  Hoosacs  a 
couple  of  miles  southwest  of  Dr.  Holmes'  villa. 
Mr.  Longfellow  visited  it  one  summer  day  and 
gives  the  following  spirited  account  of  the  ex 
cursion  and  word-painting  of  the  brook  and 
gorge  in  his  diary: 

August  28th. — In  the  morning,  sat  with  the 
children  by  the  water-wheel  in  the  brook,  then 
walked  to  the  village,  for  carriage  to  take  us  in 
the  afternoon  to  Roaring  Brook.  A  lovely  drive, 
and  lovelier  walk.  Leaving  the  carriage  at  the 
foot  of  the  hill,  we  climbed  the  rough  wagon- 
way  along  the  borders  of  the  brook,  catching 
glimpses  of  its  waterfalls  through  the  woods, 


38  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

and  hearing  the  perpetual  music  of  its  murmur. 
The  water  is  of  a  lively  brown  color,  like  Rhen 
ish  wine — the  Olympian  wine  spilled  from  the 
goblet  of  Hebe  when  she  fell.  We  climbed  as 
far  as  the  mill — a  saw-mill,  bringing  to  mind 
the  little  poem  translated  from  the  German  by 
Bryant." 

At  the  time  of  this  excursion,  Longfellow 
was  writing  his  novel  "  Kavanagh" — an  enchant 
ing  little  volume  for  readers  of  dainty  taste  and 
thought — and  he  painted  his  visit  into  it  in 
glowing  colors.  George  Lowell  Austin,  in  his 
"Life,  Works  and  Friendships  of  Longfellow," 
says:  "The  tale  was  written  in  the  Melville 
House  [Broadhall — ED.]  not  far  from  the  Pitts- 
field  home  of  Dr.  Holmes.  Most  of  the  scenery 
and  a  little  of  the  story  was  derived  from  his 
wooing  and  marriage."  The  paragraph  regard 
ing  the  Roaring  Brook  is  as  follows : 

"  Every  State,  and  almost  every  county  of 
New  England  has  its  Roaring  Brook — a  moun 
tain  streamlet,  overhung  by  woods,  impeded  by 
a  mill,  encumbered  by  fallen  trees;  but  ever- 
rushing,  racing,  roaring  down,  through  gur 
gling  gullies  and  filling  the  forest  with  its 
delicious  sound  and  freshness:  the  drinking- 
places  of  home-returning  herds;  the  mysteri 
ous  haunts  of  squirrels  and  blue-jays;  the  syl 
van  retreat  of  schoolboys,  who  frequent  it  in 
summer  holidays  and  mingle  their  restless 


THE   POET  AMONG    THE   HILLS.  39 

thoughts  with   its  restless,   exuberant,  and  re 
joicing  stream." 

Longfellow  was  not  the  only  guest  of  the 
House  of  the  Old  Clock  who  left  choice  memo 
ries  behind.  In  Mr.  Appleton's  time  many 
such  enjoyed  its  hospitality.  Of  these  Charles 
Sumner  has  for  us  the  deepest  interest.  In  the 
late  summer  of  1844,  he  was  slowly  recovering 
from  an  alarming  illness,  and  his  physician  ad 
vised  him  that  Berkshire  air  would  greatly 
hasten  and  confirm  his  convalescence.  He  was 
a  great  favorite  with  the  Appleton  family,  and 
one  of  Longfellow's  dearest  friends,  having 
been  groomsman  at  his  wedding  with  Miss  Ap 
pleton  a  year  before.  He  was  therefore  invited 
to  make  their  country-seat  his  home  as  long  as 
he  would,  and,  accepting  the  invitation,  he  be 
came  their  guest  for  several  weeks.  His  visit 
delighted  him  and  his  recovery  was  rapid. 
There  was  one  circumstance  which  contributed 
materially  to  his  enjoyment,  which  will  also 
contribute  materially  to  the  testimony  we  are 
accumulating  from  the  most  widely  informed 
and  fastidious  witnesses  to  the  summer  loveli 
ness  of  the  region  around  Dr.  Holmes'  summer 
home. 

Hon.  Edward  A.  Newton,  a  friend  and  neigh 
bor  of  the  Appletons,  and  a  man  quick  to  per 
ceive  and  appreciate  intellectual  qualities  like 
those  of  their  guest,  loaned  him  a  fine  saddle- 


40  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

horse,  enabling  him  to  make  frequent  excur 
sions  over  the  avenues  we  have  described; 
whose  attractions  he  very  warmly  acknowl 
edged.  But  he  very  soon  had  companionship 
which  doubled  their  charms.  Twelve  years 
before — in  1832 — when  he  was  a  law-student  at 
Cambridge,  he  became  thoroughly  fascinated 
with  the  beauty  and  genius  of  Fanny  Kemble, 
who,  then  twenty-one  years  old — was  making 
an  American  theatrical  tour  with  her  father. 
His  personal  acquaintance  with  her  was,  how 
ever,  of  the  slightest,  until  he  came  to  Berk 
shire.  Naturally  his  first  ride  after  getting 
settled  in  his  Pittsfield  resting-place  was  to  visit 
his  old  bosom  friends  the  Sedgwicks  at  Lenox; 
and,  with  them,  he  found  the  lady  of  his  old 
admiration,  a  dear,  valued,  and  honored  guest. 
It  was  a  delightful  surprise. 

Both  had  known  much  of  life's  changes  in  the 
interval  between  1832  and  1844.  Mr.  Sumner, 
with  a  ripening  intellect  and  a  personnel  vastly 
improved  from  that  of  the  rather  uncouth  youth 
of  his  student  life,  had  become  a  favorite  in 
society,  and  had  won  a  wider  than  national  rep 
utation  as  a  writer  upon  law.  Miss  Kemble  had 
become  Mrs.  Pierce  Butler,  and  had  suffered 
much  in  the  unhappy  marriage  which  was  dis 
solved  the  next  year.  Each  was  now  thirty- 
three  years  old;  of  an  age  and  with  the  finest 
capacities  for  the  keenest  enjoyment  of  noble 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  41 

scenery  and  the  highest  order  of  conversational 
intercourse.  Neither  was  without  sorrow ;  but 
neither  would  submit  to  conquest  by  it. 

This  combination  of  circumstances  more  than 
revived  Mr.  Sumner's  fascination  with  the  lady 
whose  genius  he  had  early  learned  to  appreci 
ate;  and  she  could  not  fail  to  be  gratified  by 
and  reciprocate  the  admiration  of  a  man  whose 
opinions  were  authority  in  the  highest  intellect 
ual  circles  of  America,  and  were  respected  in 
corresponding  circles  of  English  life.  That  she 
did  so,  is  proved  by  many  expressions  in  her 
published  writings,  as  well  as  by  her  conduct. 
Mr.  Sumner's  feeling  toward  her  is  illustrated 
by  a  passage  in  one  of  his  letters.  She  had  in 
troduced  the  English  sport  of  archery  into 
Lenox  summer-life,  where  we  believe  it  still 
flourishes.  Having  written  of  a  jolting  ride 
with  "Sam"  Ward,  one  day,  he  continues: 
"  Afterward  we  looked  on  while,  in  a  field  not 
far-off,  the  girls  and  others  were  engaged  in  the 
sport  of  archery.  Mrs.  Butler  hit  the  target  in 
the  golden  middle."  Her  triumph  evidently 
pleased  him. 

In  another  letter  he  writes :  "  I  count  much 
upon  the  readings  from  Shakespeare,  the  con 
versations  and  society  of  Fanny  Kemble"  (He 
restores  here  her  maiden  name),  "who  has 
promised  to  ride  with  me,  and  introduce  me  to 
the  beautiful  lanes  and  wild  paths  of  these 


42  THE   POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

mountains.  She  seems  a  noble  woman — pecul 
iar,  bold,  masculine,  and  unaccommodating; 
but  having  a  burning  sympathy  with  all  that  is 
high,  true,  and  humane." 

The  next  day  he  wrote  to  his  friend  George 
S.  Hillard,  who  accompained  him  to  Pittsfield, 
but  had  returned:  "  I  wish  you  were  still  here. 
Your  presence  would  help  me  bear  the  weight 
of  Fanny  Kemble's  conversation ;  for  much  as 
I  admire  her,  I  confess  to  a  certain  awe  and 
sense  of  her  superiority  which  makes  me  at 
times  'anxious  to  subside  into  my  own  inferi 
ority  and  leave  the  conversation  to  other  minds. " 

Here  is  an  account  of  a  Sunday  visit  to 
Lenox : 

"  I  was  perplexed  whether  to  use  Mr.  New 
ton's  horse,  as  I  presumed  his  owner  never  used 
him  on  Sunday,  but  my  scruples  gave  way  be 
fore  my  longing  for  the  best  of  exercises.  I 
left  Pittsfield  as  the  first  bell  tolled  for  church 
and  reached  Lenox  some  time  before  the  second 
bell.  I  sat  in  Mrs.  [Charles]  Sedgwick's  room  ; 
the  time  passed  on.  Mrs.  Butler  joined  us; 
again  time  passed  on.  Mrs.  Butler  proposed  to 
accompany  me  back  to  Pittsfield  on  horseback. 
I  stayed  to  the  cold  dinner,  making  it  lunch; 
again  time  passed  on  from  delay  in  saddling  the 
horses.  We  rode  the  longest  way,  and  I  en 
joyed  my  companion  much." 

The  longest  way  was  by  the  east  road,  which 


THE   POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  43 

runs  along  the  base  of  October  Mountain,  cross 
ing  Roaring  Brook  and  the  Housatonic  River, 
whose  serpentine  course  is  here  seen  to  great 
advantage. 

Toward  the  end  of  summer,  Mr.  Sumner 
wrote  to  Dr.  Howe:  "  Hillard  is  here  with  me, 
and  my  situation  is  made  most  agreeable  by  the 
kindest  hospitality.  We  took  a  drive  the  first 
day,  to  Lenox,  where  the  Sedgwicks  received 
me  warmly,— somewhat  as  one  risen  from  the 
dead.  Next  day,  we  made  an  excursion  to 
Lanesboro,  enjoying  much  the  meadows,  green 
fields,  rich  country,  and  beautiful  scenery.  I 
shall  linger  here  another  week."  Accepting 
an  invitation  in  this  letter,  Dr.  Howe  made  a 
brief  visit  to  the  "House  of  the  Old  Clock." 
After  his  return  Mr.  Sumner  wrote  him  on 
September  8 :  "  Since  you  were  here  I  have 
waxed  in  strength  most  visibly.  To-day  I  rode 
two  hours  as  the  escort  of  two  damsels  of  the 
place;  one  of  them,  the  governor's  daughter. 
Dr.  Robert  Campbell,  a  most  respectable  phy 
sician  of  the  place,  called  a  few  evenings  since. 
He  found  my  pulse  112,  and  said  that  its  de 
rangement  was  difficult  to  explain.  He  since 
met  me  in  the  street  and  volunteered  to  say 
that  he  had  thought  a  great  deal  of  my  case, 
and  was  convinced  that  the  derangement  of  my 
pulse  was  not  to  be  referred  to  any  organic  dis 
ease,  but  to  some  affection  of  the  nerves;  which 


44  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

is  precisely  my  version  of  it.  I  am  doing  so 
well  here,  making  such  p'alpable  progress,  and 
friends  are  so  kind,  that  I  shall  linger  in  Pitts- 
field  or  Lenox  the  greater  part — perhaps  all  of 
next  week ;  when  I  shall  be  very  strong. 

Mr.  Sumner's  sanguine  anticipations  of 
restoration  to  perfect  and  permanent  health  by 
the  aid  of  Berkshire  air  were  fully  realized; 
although  something  of  the  credit  may  be  claimed 
for  the  very  agreeable — not  to  say  enchanting — 
circumstances  under  which  he  breathed  it. 
This  pleasant  and  interesting  episode  in  the 
earlier  life  of  the  great  orator  and  statesman  is 
also  a  pleasant  and  interesting  episode  in  the 
story  of  Pittsfield  and  Lenox  life.  We  present 
the  pictures  of  his  rides  and  walks  with  the 
great  actress  and  woman  of  genius,  as  charms 
wherewith  those  who  follow  in  the  scenes  which 
delighted  them  may  conjure  up  fantasies  of 
delight  for  themselves. 

Longfellow  fully  shared  Sumner's  admiration 
for  Fanny  Kemble;  and  in  neither  did  it  fade 
with  time.  Both  were  in  raptures  with  her 
Shakespearian  readings.  After  one  at  Boston, 
in  1849,  when  Longfellow  had  recently  returned 
from  Pittsfield  and  Mrs.  Kemble  from  Lenox,  he 
wrote  her  a  sonnet  complimenting  it  as  it  de 
served.  "It  pleased  her  much,"  and  Sumner 
copied  it  for  publication  in  the  Evening  Tran 
script :  a  pretty  little  incident  of  the  beautiful 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  45 

friendships  of  the  little -group  of  great  minds  to 
which  the  poet  and  the  orator  belonged. 

In  1853  Nathan  Appleton  sold  the  House  of 
the  Old  Clock  to  Thomas  F.  Plunkett,  who 
made  it  his  residence.  But  the  "  free-hearted 
hospitality"  that  "used  to  be,"  continued  to  be, 
and  was  enjoyed  by  the  same  class  of  guests. 
We  can,  however,  mention  only  one ;  Dr.  Josiah 
Gilbert  Holland,  editor,  essayist,  novelist,  poet, 
and  historian,  who  was  for  many  years  in  many 
ways  associated  with  Pittsfield  from  the  time 
when  he  was  a  student  in  its  medical  college ;  and 
whose  careful  and  most  appreciative  biography 
was  written  by  Mrs.  H.  M.  Plunkett,  the  present 
mistress  of  the  "  Old  House"  of  many  memories. 

We  may  seem  to  have  wandered  far  from  our 
asserted  theme;  but  we  wish  to  remind  the 
reader  that  the  region  which  Dr.  Holmes  loved 
so  well,  and  honored  so  much,  that  it  can  almost 
be  called  his  own,  had  charms  for  other  like 
minds.  We  would  avoid  leaving  the  impression 
that  he  was  for  Pittsfield  the  lone  swallow  that 
does  not  make  a  summer,  whereas  he  was  in 
fact  the  most  tuneful,  the  most  loving,  and  the 
most  nearly  native  of  many  summer  song-birds 
who  have  loved  its  haunts  and  left  them  melo 
dious  with  the  echoes  of  their  praise:  foremost 
also  among  the  men  of  genius  whose  fame, 
mingling  with  the  glory  of  its  scenery,  imparts 
to  it  a  richer  tinge. 


46  THE   POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

"  I  hope  there  will  be  luster  enough  in  one  or 
more  of  the  names  with  which  I  shall  gild  my 
pages  to  redeem  the  dullness  of  all  that  is 
merely  personal  in  my  recollections."  Dr. 
Holmes  printed  this  in  the  introduction  to  one 
of  his  books.  We  have  carefully  examined  the 
volume  in  question ;  and  there  is  not  in  it  the 
slightest  particle  of  dullness  to  be  redeemed. 
The  sentence  quoted  is  therefore  entirely  super 
fluous.  Being  utterly  useless  to  its  author,  and 
exactly  adapted  to  our  needs,  we  shall  appro 
priate  and  adopt  it  without  scruple.  By  the 
way,  it  was  quite  a  habit  of  Dr.  Holmes  to  write 
that  which  his  readers  wished  they  had  written 
themselves;  it  being  just  what  they  thought 
they  had  thought  before. 

Dr.  Holmes'  verse,  both  in  its  sentiments  and 
in  his  generous  contributions  of  it  to  the  town's 
great  intellectual  festivals,  shows  clearly  his 
warm  regard  for  Pittsfield;  but  yet  stronger 
evidence  that  his  love  for  the  place  was  genuine 
and  deep,  is  found  in  his  private  correspondence 
and  public  prose  utterances.  Of  these  we  shall 
present  some  glowing  words  in  their  natural 
connections;  but  will  here  content  ourselves 
with  a  single  letter.  It  is  not  more  emphatic 
or  explicit  than  those  to  be  quoted  later;  but 
we  give  it  place  here  because  it  states  concisely 
some  points  which  introduce  the  writer  as  a 
Berkshire  man,  and  prepare  the  way  for  much 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  47 

that  is  to  follow.  Dr.  Holmes  once  said  in 
Pittsfield  that  he  was  so  fond  of  newspaper  read 
ing  that  he  was  obliged  to  systematically  re 
strict  himself  to  a  limited  number  in  each  class 
that  he  cared  for.  It  was  another  proof  of  his 
kindly  sympathies  with  our  common  humanity. 
It  will  be  observed  that,  except  "The  Vision  of 
the  Housatonic  River,"  every  one  of  the  poems 
in  the  present  collection  was  first  printed  in  a 
Pittsfield  newspaper.  This,  to  be  sure,  was  be 
cause  they  were  included  in  reports  of  public 
occasions.  Still  as  their  author  expressed  sur 
prise  and  pleasure  on  account  of  the  accuracy  of 
the  work,  the  representatives  of  the  local  press 
will  be  apt  to  remember  it.  The  letter  which 
we  quote  was  addressed  to  the  Berkshire  Press 
Club,  declining  an  invitation  to  its  annual  din 
ner  in  1880.  It  is  a  good  example  of  the  court 
esy  with  which  Dr.  Holmes  uniformly  softened 
such  declinations  when  compelled  to  make 
them.  Still  his  uniform  utterances  at  every 
opportunity  leave  no  doubt  of  the  sincerity  of 
what  he  wrote  as  to  his  relations  with  Pittsfield. 

"BOSTON,  Oct.  16,  1880. 

"  GENTLEMEN  : — I  thank,  you  for  your  very  kind 
invitation  to  enjoy  a  social  evening  with  the 
Berkshire  editors  and  reporters.  Seven  of  the 
happiest  summers  of  my  life  were  passed  in 
Berkshire  with  the  Housatonic  running  through 


48  THE   POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

my  meadows  and  Greylock  looking  into  my 
study  windows.  It  pleases  me  to  know  that  I 
am  not  wholly  forgotten  in  the  flourishing  town 
and  almost  city  of  Pittsfield,  to  which  my  great 
grandfather  (Col.  Jacob  Wendell)  rode,  on 
horseback  through  the  woods,  when  it  was  an 
Indian  settlement  or  camp. 

"  I  regret  very  much  that  it  is  not  in  my 
power  to  be  with  you  at  the  American  House ; 
but  no  outside  guest  can  be  missed  at  a  meeting 
enlivened  by  the  wit  and  talent  sure  to  be  seated 
at  a  board  surrounded  by  editors  and  reporters. 
"I  am,  etc., 

"O.  W.  HOLMES." 


II. 

BERKSHIRE  JUBILEE  SPEECH  AND  POEM. 

Sketch  of  the  Jubilee — The  Dinner — David  Dudley 
Field's  Journey  of  a  Day— Catherine  Sedgwick's 
Chronicles— Dr.  Holmes'  Table  Speech— His  Poem 
of  Welcome. 

SOMETHING  of  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes'  rela 
tion  to  Pittsfield  and  Berkshire  is  intimated  in 
the  letter  with  which  our  prologue  closes ;  but 
his  affiliation  with  the  town  will  appear  more 
definitely  as  we  proceed;  still  using  his  own 
words  as  a  basis  and  guide.  And  we  begin 
with  those  spoken  at  the  Berkshire  Jubilee  of 
1844.  The  Berkshire  Jubilee : — Fifty  years  ago 
that  name  would  have  needed  no  interpreta 
tion  in  a  connection  like  this.  The  unique 
character  of  the  festival,  the  many  famous  par 
ticipants  in  it,  and  the  great  number  of  the 
mountain  county's  sons  and  daughters  who 
flocked  to  it  from  homes  in  all  sections  of  the 
Union,  secured  liberal  reports  of,  and  comments 
upon,  its  proceedings  in  all  considerable  Amer 
ican  journals.  But  all  things  are  food  for 
edacious  Time;  and  even  a  little  half-century 
4  49 


50  THE   POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

is  a  ravenous  devourer  of  newspaper  fame.  The 
story  of  the  Jubilee  is  still  locally  extant;  but 
even  at  home,  although  a  little  revived  by  the 
recurrence  of  its  fiftieth  anniversary,  it  begins 
to  take  on  the  phantom -like  obscurity  of  tra 
dition.  Elsewhere,  now  and  then,  a  minute 
biographer  alludes  to  it  in  his  memoir  of  some 
prominent  actor  in  it;  taking  good  care  to  pro 
vide  an  explanatory  foot-note,  or  its  equivalent. 
Yet  it  was  a  right  memorable  occasion ;  and  one 
that  deserves  a  permanent  record.  That  its 
name  and  some  hint  of  its  character  will  be  pre 
served  is  made  sure  by  the  inclusion  of  Dr. 
Holmes'  poem  of  welcome  to  it  in  the  perma 
nent  collection  of  his  works;  but  even  there  it 
calls  for  the  annotation  we  are  to  give  it  here. 

THE   JUBILEE. 

For  some  years  previous  to  1844,  Rev.  Rus 
sell  S.  Cook,  of  New  York,  a  native  of  New 
Marlboro,  a  resident  of  Lenox  in  his  youth,  and 
a  frequent  loving  visitor  to  it  in  his  mature  life, 
was  secretary  of  the  American  Tract  Society. 
His  official  duties  called  him  to  all  sections  of 
the  country;  and  everywhere  he  found  Berk 
shire  men  in  respectable,  and  often  in  high, 
positions.  Impressed  by  the  spontaneous  ex 
pressions  of  warm  regard  for  their  old  mountain 
homes  by  those  whom  he  earliest  met,  further 


THE   POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS,  51 

inquiry  wherever  he  went  convinced  him  that 
this  feeling  was  uniform  and  universal. 

From  these  and  cognate  observations,  Mr. 
Cook  conceived  the  idea  of  bringing  these  emi 
grants  together  in  a  social  reunion  at  some 
convenient  central  point  in  Berkshire,  with  a 
view  to  forming  a  band  of  union  among  them ; 
awakening  in  the  citizens  of  the  county  an  in 
terest  in  the  fame  and  usefulness  of  those  who 
had  gone  out  from  among  them,  and  also  of 
furnishing  to  the  world  an  illustration  of  the 
influence  New  England  was  having  in  the  for 
mation  of  the  character  of  the  country.  Mr. 
Cook  suggested  this  idea  from  time  to  time  in 
his  official  visits,  and  found  it  everywhere  cor 
dially  approved;  but  its  realization  was  post 
poned,  awaiting  the  recovery  of  the  country 
from  the  financial  depression  of  1837  ;  and  prob 
ably,  also,  the  completion  of  the  Western  (now 
the  Boston  and  Albany)  Railroad  to  Pittsfield, 
which  did  not  happen  until  the  late  fall  of  1842. 
In  the  spring  of  1843,  Mr.  Cook,  incidentally 
meeting  Judge  Joshua  A.  Spencer,  of  Utica,  a 
native  of  Great  Barrington,  broached  the  sub 
ject  to  him.  The  judge  heartily  concurred  in 
his  idea,  and  the  two  gentlemen  agreed  upon  a 
plan  which  was  afterward  substantially  carried 
out.  Both  were  men  of  influence  personally,  as 
well  as  from  their  official  positions.  Leading 
New  York  newspapers  gave  their  earnest  assist- 


52  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

ance,  the  name  "Berkshire  Jubilee"  being  first 
printed  in  the  Journal  of  Commerce,  whose  editor, 
Colonel  Stone,  was  foremost  in  his  helpfulness. 
There  was  no  difficulty  in  organizing  a  "  New 
York  Committee"  zealous  for  the  proposed  re 
union,  with  names  upon  it  fit  to  conjure  with: 
such  as  William  Cullen  Bryant,  Orville  Dewey, 
Judge  Samuel  R.  Betts,  David  Dudley  Field, 
Theodore  Sedgwick,  Marshall  S.  Bidwell,  and 
Drake  Mills.  This  committee  communicated 
with  gentlemen  in  Pittsfield,  where,  and  in  the 
county,  committees  were  formed  for  the  local 
work. 

Then  all  went  swimmingly.  It  was  deter 
mined  to  hold  the  Jubilee  at  Pittsfield,  August 
22  and  23,  1844.  The  program  called  for  a  ser 
mon  and  historical  poem  on  the  first  day,  an 
oration  in  the  forenoon  and  a  dinner  in  the 
afternoon  of  the  second:  all  preceded  by  formal 
and  informal  welcomes  and  greetings,  which 
proved  to  be  warm  and  heartfelt,  and  inter 
spersed  with  poems,  hymns,  and  other  minor 
exercises,  some  of  which  were  of  very  marked 
character;  such  as  an  essay  upon  the  then  re 
cently  deceased  William  Ellery  Channing  by 
his  friend  Miss  Sedgwick,  and  an  ode  on  Berk 
shire  by  Mrs.  Frances  Ann  (Fanny)  Kemble. 

Near  the  Pittsfield  Union  Railroad  passenger 
station — which  indeed  stands  on  the  edge  of  its 
southern  slope — there  rises  the  most  conspicuous 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  53 

natural  elevation  in  the  township,  save  its  very 
narrow  mountain  borders.  It  is  almost  two 
hundred  rods  long  and  forty  wide,  and  its  sum 
mit  is  about  sixty  feet  above  the  mean  level  of 
the  city  streets.  It  was  originally  the  farm  of 
Dr.  Timothy  Childs,  one  of  the  most  honored 
of  Pittsfield's  Revolutionary  patriots;  and,  al 
though  it  is  now  covered  with  fine  streets  and 
avenues,  in  1844  there  was  no  house  upon  it 
except  the  homestead  which  he  built,  and  in 
his  lifetime  occupied.  Thus  it  commanded  an 
entirely  unobstructed  view  of  the  noble  valley, 
with  ever-majestic  Greylock  looking  down  upon 
it  from  the  north,  and  the  graceful  triune  Lenox 
Range,  with  Yocun's  Seat,  its  loftiest  peak,  not 
far  away  on  the  south.  The  Housatonic  flowed 
along  its  western  base,  and  the  village  lay  smil 
ing  on  the  east. 

All  its  memories  and  features  marked  this 
fair  hill  as  the  proper  spot  for  most  of  the  exer 
cises  of  the  Jubilee;  and  a  platform  was  erected 
near  the  southern  extremity  of  its  summit  upon 
which  it  was  planned  to  conduct  all,  except  the 
receptions  and  the  dinner.  But,  when  the  peo 
ple  had  assembled  for  the  sermon,  a  violent 
rain-storm  drove  them,  "  in  most  admired  dis 
order,"  from  the  hill  to  the  time-honored,  fairly 
handsome  and  spacious  Congregational  church. 
There  the  sermon  was  preached  by  that  most 
eminent  educator,  metaphysician,  and  pulpit 


54  THE  POET  AMONG    THE   HILLS. 

orator,  President  Mark  Hopkins  of  Williams 
College.  Dr.  Hopkins  has  been  happily  char 
acterized  as  "  massive-minded ;"  and  his  Jubilee 
sermon  was  what  was  to  be  expected  from  such 
a  preacher.  But  he  was  also  a  true  son  of  one 
of  the  most  Berkshire  of  all  old  Berkshire  fami 
lies.  He  dearly  loved  the  scenery  which  had 
delighted  him  from  childhood,  and  he  was  proud 
of  the  history  in  whose  glories  he  had  good  right 
to  share.  He  knew  well  how  to  prize  all  that 
went  to  make  up  the  grand  mountain-walled 
individuality  which  peculiarly  characterizes  the 
county.  Naturally  inspired  by  an  occasion 
which  kindled  and  concentrated  thought  of  all 
this,  many  poetic  passages  glowed,  like  Alpine 
roses,  among  his  massive  sentences. 

A  poem  by  Rev.  Dr.  William  Allen,  of 
Northampton,  ex-president  of  Bowdoin  Col 
lege,  followed  the  sermon,  and,  if  not  such 
poetry  as  Bryant  would  have  discoursed,  it  was 
excellent  local  history  and  topography,  and  well 
fitted  to  stimulate  and  gratify  local  pride.  Dr. 
Allen  was  a  scholar  and  biographical  writer  of 
decided  merit;  but  his  special  claim  to  the 
position  assigned  him  at  the  Jubilee  was  that 
he  was  a  son  of  Rev.  Thomas  Allen,  the  first 
minister  of  Pittsfield  and  the  "  Fighting  Parson 
of  Bennington  Field;"  and  that,  succeeding  his 
father  in  1811,  he  had  preached  six  years  in 
the  pulpit  from  which  he  read  his  poem  ;  so  that 


THE   POET  AMONG    THE   HILLS.  55 

he  might  well  have  been  regarded  as  a  connect 
ing  link  between  the  Berkshire  men  of  the 
Revolution  and  those  of  the  Jubilee  time. 

The  oration  on  the  second  day,  by  Judge 
Joshua  A.  Spencer,  was  a  terse  resume  vl  Berk 
shire  history,  told  with  grace  and  spirit. 
Nature,  grown  more  kindly,  permitted  it  to  be 
delivered,  with  other  interesting  exercises,  from 
the  platform  on  the  hill.  Up  to  this  time  this 
hill  had  been  known  simply  as  the  "  Childs 
Farm."  But  Rev.  Dr.  John  Todd,  the  chair 
man  of  the  Pittsfield  committee,  in  his  farewell 
address  at  the  close  of  the  Jubilee,  in  the  din 
ner  pavilion,  said: 

**  We  have  been  thinking  how  we  could  erect 
some  monument  of  this  Jubilee.  In  our  wis 
dom  we  have  spoken  of  several;  but,  after  all, 
God  has  been  before  us;  and  his  mighty  hand 
hath  reared  the  monument.  That  hill  from 
which  we  came  to  this  pavilion  will  hereafter 
bear  the  name  of  JUBILEE  HILL;  and  when  our 
heads  are  laid  in  the  grave,  and  we  have  passed 
away,  and  are  forgotten,  we  hope  that  our  chil 
dren  and  our  children's  children  will  walk  over 
that  beautiful  spot,  and  say,  'Here  our  fathers 
celebrated  the  Berkshire  Jubilee.'  This  monu 
ment  shall  stand  as  long  as  the  footstool  of  God 
shall  remain." 

The  great  assemblage  gave  a  ringing  response 
to  these  words ;  and  the  name  was  fixed  forever. 


56  THE   POET  AMONG    THE   HILLS. 


THE  JUBILEE  DINNER. 

The  successive  parts  of  the  Jubilee  were  re 
markably  well  balanced;  but  the  dinner  was 
singularly  memorable:  the  intellectual  portion 
being  an  expansion  of  the  thought  and  concen 
trated  essence  of  the  feeling  which  marked  the 
preceding  demonstration.  Its  story  is  certainly 
pertinent  to  our  present  essay,  as  Dr.  Holmes 
was  a  conspicuous  figure  in  it. 

The  main  streets  of  Pittsfield  that  run  north 
and  south  are,  for  some  three-quarters  of  a  mile, 
bordered  by  plains.  Near  the  northern  end  of 
this  distance  there  was  in  1812  a  large,  perfectly 
level,  open  field.  This  attracted  the  attention 
of  Maj.-Gen.  H.  A.  S.  Dearborn,  who  was  or 
ganizing  the  Northern  Military  Department  for 
the  war  that  was  just  commencing;  and  he 
selected  it  as  a  site  for  a  cantonment — a  post  of 
rendezvous,  organization,  and  training  for  regi 
ments  raised  in  New  England,  and  for  the  con 
finement  of  prisoners  of  war.  Pittsfield  had 
been  chosen  for  the  cantonment  on  account  of  its 
defensible  position  among  the  hills:  a  protec 
tion  for  which,  at  the  Jubilee,  years  afterward, 
the  assembled  people  returned  thanks  by  sing 
ing  with  enthusiasm  Mrs.  Hemans'  "  Hymn  of 
the  Mountain  Christians,"  of  which  we  quote 
one  verse : 


THE   POET  AMONG    THE   HILLS.  57 

"  For  the  strength  of  the  hills,  we  bless  thee, 

Our  God,  our  fathers'  God. 
Thou  hast  made  thy  children  mighty 

By  the  touch  of  the  mountain  sod. 
Thou  hast  fixed  our  ark  of  refuge 

Where  the  spoiler's  foot  ne'er  trod  ; 
For  the  strength  of  the  hills  we  bless  thee, 

Our  God,  our  fathers'  God." 

Barracks  were  erected  for  the  cantonment  and 
occupied  by  many  of  the  soldiers  who  won 
honor  in  the  northern  campaigns,  and  by  more 
than  two  thousand  of  the  prisoners  captured  by 
them ;  the  privates  among  the  latter  seeming 
to  enjoy  their  captivity  better  than  campaigning. 

When  the  war  was  over  the  barracks  gave 
place  to  three  large  buildings  erected  for  the 
Berkshire  Gymnasium,  a  high  school  for  young 
men,  founded  on  a  peculiar  German  model  by 
Professor  Chester  Dewey,  one  of  the  foremost 
American  men  of  science  of  his  time,  and  one 
who  did  a  great  work  as  a  pioneer  in  the  study 
of  Western  Massachusetts  geology,  mineralogy, 
and  natural  history  generally.  Professor  Dewey 
having  discontinued  the  gymnasium,  to  accept 
a  professorship  in  the  Rochester  University,  the 
buildings  were  occupied  in  1844  by  the  Pitts- 
field  Young  Ladies'  Institute,  which,  although 
recently  founded,  had  alread)r  attained  a  national 
standing.  Before  these  buildings,  a  pavilion  for 
the  Jubilee  dinner  was  erected,  in  which  tables 
were  spread  for  a  thousand  guests. 


58  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

The  president  of  the  day  was  George  N. 
Briggs,  who  was  then  serving  the  first  of  seven 
terms  as  Governor  of  the  Commonwealth  after 
six  in  Congress:  an  admirable  selection,  not 
solely  because  Governor  Briggs  was  the  most 
eminent  citizen  of  the  town  and  county  in  official 
rank  ;  but  because  he  was  unsurpassed  in  quali 
fications  to  preside  at  a  festal  table  like  this: 
never-failing  tact,  self-possession,  and  knowl 
edge  of  men,  ready  and  never  misplaced  wit 
and  humor,  wonderful  familiarity  with  Berk 
shire  character,  history,  tradition,  and  anecdote, 
together  with  the  happiest  faculty  for  making 
use  of  his  local  lore. 

Some  thirty  sons  of  Berkshire  responded  to 
the  president's  call  for  short  speeches  or  "  sen 
timents;"  all  of  them  men  of  note  in  their  sev 
eral  homes,  and  some  of  wider  fame.  Among 
them,  besides  several  who  have  been  named  in 
other  connections,  were  President  Heman 
Humphrey  of  Amherst  College — who  before 
and  after  that  presidency  was  an  intense  and 
ardent  Pittsfield  man — Rev.  Drs.  Orville  and 
Chester  Dewey,  Theodore  Sedgwick,  of  New 
York  and  Stockbridge;  John  Mills,  of  Spring 
field,  and  Julius  Rockwell,  the  successor  of 
Governor  Briggs  in  Congress.  An  interesting 
speaker  was  Rev.  Joshua  Noble  Danforth,  of 
Alexandria,  Virginia,  a  son  of  Pittsfield's  Rev 
olutionary  hero,  Col.  Joshua  Danforth;  who 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE   HILLS.  59 

said :  "  We  stand  here  to-day,  forty  in  relation 
ship — twenty-five  of  us  the  direct  descendants 
of  David  Noble  of  Williamstown — the  upright 
judge,  the  exemplary  Christian." 

A  peculiarly  pleasant  and  striking  incident  of 
the  day  was  the  speech  and  the  reading  of 
Leigh  Hunt's  poem,  "  Abou  Ben  Adhem,"  by 
William  Charles  Macready,  the  distinguished 
English  tragedian;  which,  with  Mrs.  Kemble's 
grand  Berkshire  ode,  made  a  contribution  to  the 
occasion  from  the  British  stage  that  was  little  to 
be  expected. 

Another  pleasant  and  notable  feature  was  the 
presence  of  Rev.  Dr.  David  Dudley  Field,  of 
Stockbridge,  the  first  historian  of  Berkshire 
County,  with  two  of  his  famous  sons,  David 
Dudley  and  Cyrus  W.  Naturally  the  great  law 
yer  was  the  spokesman  of  the  family:  but  it 
is  not  for  that  we  now  specially  recall  him. 
In  President  Hopkins'  sermon  there  occurred 
the  following  passage:  "Probably  most  of  us 
have  read — for  it  was  in  an  old  New  England 
school-book — of  that  'Journey  of  a  Day'  that 
was  a  picture  of  human  life.  And,  if  it  were 
given  us  to  make  the  journey  of  a  day  that 
should  be,  not  in  its  events,  but  in  its  scenery, 
the  picture  of  our  lives,  where  should  we  rather 
choose  to  make  it  than  through  the  length  of 
our  Berkshire?  What  could  be  better  than  to 
watch  the  rising  of  the  sun  from  the  top  of 


60  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

Greylock,    and   his    setting   from   the   Eagle's 
Nest?" 

"  This  passage  so  fastened  itself  on  Mr.  Field's 
mind"  that  he  followed  its  suggestions,  the  very 
next  week;  and  his  spirited  account  of  the  ex 
perience  the  excursion  brought  him  was  widely 
published  in  the  journals  of  the  time  under  the 
title  of  "A  Journey  of  a  Day,"  and  is  repro 
duced  in  the  recent  superb  edition  of  his  writ 
ings.  "  The  entire  length  of  the  county" —  he 
wrote— "from  north  to  south  is  fifty  miles;  and 
if  the  ascent  of  Greylock  is  made  the  evening 
before,  so  that  the  journey  may  begin  at  sunrise, 
it  is  possible  in  thirteen  hours  to  pass  down  the 
valley,  ascend  the  Dome  of  the  Taconics,  and 
get  a  last  view  of  the  setting  sun  from  the 
Eagle's  Nest."  This  he  accomplished:  passing 
through  Williamstown,  New  Ashford,  Lanes- 
boro,  Pittsfield,  Lenox,  Stockbridge,  Great  Bar- 
rington ;  and,  over  the  Dome  of  the  Taconics 
in  Egremont,  into  the  wild,  awe-inspiring  gorge 
of  the  far-famed  Bash-Bish  Falls  in  the  western 
side  of  Mount  Washington,  where,  among  the 
other  almost  Alpine  features,  a  vast  wall  of  rock 
rises  two  hundred  feet,  beetling  twenty-five  feet 
beyond  its  base  at  its  top;  the  Eagle's  Nest, 
from  which  Mr.  Field  and  his  companion  had  a 
glorious  view  of  the  setting  sun ;  Greylock, 
Williamstown,  Lanesboro,  Pittsfield,  Lenox, 
Stockbridge,  Great  Barrington,  the  Dome,  and 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  61 

the  Eagle's  Nest:  what  a  carcanet  of  golden 
landscapes  jeweled  with  precious  memories 
these  names  call  to  mind !  And  to  each  and  all 
the  great  jurist  dealt  poetic  justice,  both  as  to 
scenery  and  to  story.  We  can,  however,  only 
quote  his  words  regarding  the  Jubilee,  and  so 
much  of  those  concerning  Pittsfield  as  relate  to 
the  town  as  its  seat. 

Arriving  at  Pontoosuc  Lake,  which  he  locates 
in  Lanesboro,  although  half  its  surface  is  in 
Pittsfield,  Mr.  Field  writes: 

"  One  feature  of  uncommon  beauty,  the  place 
[Lanesboro']  has:  its  Pontoosuc  Lake,  or 
Shoonke  Moonke,  as  it  is  sometimes  called.  It 
covers  six  hundred  acres ;  and  its  bright  waters, 
the  road  along  its  margin,  and  the  tall  trees  that 
shade  it  make  you  sorry  to  leave  it.  We  could 
not  stay,  but  hurried  on  to  Pittsfield.  What 
shall  we  say  of  Pittsfield;  the  hospitable,  the 
beautiful?  Just  fresh  from  the  Jubilee — fresh 
from  the  open  houses  and  the  open  hearts  of 
her  people — we  drove  into  the  village,  with  the 
scenes  of  those  two  days  fresh  in  our  vision. 
The  intervening  week  had  vanished.  We  stood 
again  on  Jubilee  Hill ;  we  went  down  to  the  field 
where  the  feast  was  spread;  we  laughed  under 
the  Old  Elm;  we  saw  our  friends — our  fellows; 
as  goodly  a  company  as  we  shall  see  again  for 
many  a  day.  Truly  it  was  a  high  festival:  one 
worthy  to  be  commemorated — to  be  repeated." 


62  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

"The  valley  of  the  Housatonic  here  widens 
to  its  greatest  breadth.  Poontoosuck,  the  In 
dian  name  (pity  it  was  not  retained)  signifies 
'a  field  for  the  deer.'  Pleasant  place  for  hunt 
ing  the  Indians  must  have  found  it;  and  pleas 
ant,  too,  for  sojourn  it  is  for  the  white  man." 

We  must  content  us  with  one  more  contem 
porary  description  of  the  Jubilee;  or  a  portion 
of  one.  It  is  from  the  pen  of  Catherine  Sedg- 
wick — there  could  be  no  better  representatives 
of  the  people  of  southern  Berkshire  at  the  Jubi 
lee,  and  of  their  feeling  regarding  it  than  Dud 
ley  Field  and  Catherine  Sedgwick.  An  official 
report  of  the  proceedings  on  the  two  days  of  the 
festival  was  published  in  an  octavo  volume,  and 
Miss  Sedgwick  contributed  to  it  a  five-page 
resume  of  the  story,  written  in  the  Hebraic 
manner.  We  quote  a  few  of  the  more  detach 
able  verses. 


"  Hath  not  the  Lord  given  us  rest  on  every 
side!  Now  we  will  proclaim  a  Jubilee. — We 
will  go  up  to  our  Jerusalem!  We  will  worship 
in  the  temples  of  our  fathers.  We  will  kiss  the 
sod  that  covers  the  graves  of  our  kindred;  and 
we  will  sit  ourselves  down  in  the  old  places 
where  their  shadows  will  pass  before  us! 

"We  will  rejoice  and  make  merry  with  our 
brethren;  and  Memory  and  Hope  shall  be  our 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  63 

pleasant  ministers.  And  we  will  lay  our  hearts 
together,  and  stir  up  the  smouldering  embers 
of  old  friendships  till  the  fire  burns  within  us: 
and  this,  even  this  sacred  fire,  will  we  transmit 
to  our  children's  children. 

"And  even  as  they  said,  so  did  they;  and  in 
the  summer  solstice,  with  one  heart  and  one 
mind,  did  they  come  together:  the  Pilgrims 
from  afar  and  the  Sojourners  at  home.  Even 
from  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi  came  they; 
and  from  the  yet  farther  country  of  the  Mis 
souri,  and  from  the  Land  of  the  Sun,  even  from 
the  Southland;  and  from  all  the  goodly  lands 
about  Massachusetts. 


"And  they  gathered  together,  a  multitude  of 
people,  old  men  and  elder  women,  young  men 
and  fair  young  maidens,  and  much  children — a 
very  great  company  were  they. 

"  And  a  great  heart  was  in  the  people  of  Pitts- 
field  ;  and  they  opened  the  doors  of  their  pleas 
ant  dwellings  and  bade  their  brethren  enter 
therein.  And  they  spread  fine  linen  on  their 
beds,  and  they  covered  their  tables  with  the  fat 
of  the  land ;  for  the  Lord  had  greatly  blessed 
the  people  of  Pittsfield. 

"  And  they  said  to  all  their  brethren :  Come 
now  and  enter  in  and  freely  take  of  our  abun 
dance;  for,  lo,  have  we  not  spread  our  tables 


64  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

for  you,  and  hath  not  the  angel  of  sleep  dressed 
our  beds,  that  our  brethren  may  sleep  therein? 

"  And  the  faces  of  their  brethren  shone,  and 
they  entered  in ;  and  they  said :  It  was  a  true 
report  we  heard  of  thee;  thy  land  doth  excel, 
and  thou  hast  greatly  increased  the  riches  and 
the  beauty  thereof." 

Such  was  the  occasion  on  which  Oliver  Wen 
dell  Holmes  first  addressed  a  Berkshire  audi 
ence;  and  such  were  the  men  and  women 
associated  with  him  in  it. 

DR.   HOLMES'  SPEECH  AND  POEM. 

Governor  Briggs  having  made  a  cordial,  in 
teresting,  and  appropriate  speech  of  welcome, 
to  which  Judge  Betts  responded  in  the  same 
vein,  the  governor  announced  a  poem  by  Dr. 
Holmes.  The  poet  was  already  not  unknown 
to  fame,  although  very  far  from  that  which 
afterward  celebrated  his  name;  and  its  an 
nouncement  was  received  with  ringing  cheers 
and  cries  of  "Come  forward!"  The  president 
suggested  that  he  should  rather  follow  the  ex 
ample  of  Judge  Betts,  and  mount  the  table; 
remarking  that  this  would  be  an  advance  on 
some  old-fashioned  feasts,  where  the  tendency 
was  rather  to  get  under  the  table  than  upon  it. 
Dr.  Holmes  followed  this  advice  and  took  the 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  65 

table:  and  when  the  renewed  cheers  subsided 
read  the  following  speech  and  poem. 

He  asked  to  be  allowed,  before  he  opened 
the  paper  in  his  hand,  to  assure  his  friends  of 
the  reason  why  he  found  himself  there.  He 
said: 

"  Inasmuch  as  the  company  express  willing 
ness  to  hear  historical  incidents,  any  little  inci 
dent  which  shall  connect  me  with  those  to  whom 
I  cannot  claim  to  be  a  brother,  seems  to  be  fairly 
brought  forward.  One  of  my  earliest  recollec 
tions  is  of  an  annual  pilgrimage  made  by  my 
parents  to  the  west.  The  young  horse  was 
brought  up,  fatted  by  a  week's  rest  and  high 
feeding,  prancing  and  caracoling  to  the  door. 
It  came  to  the  corner  and  was  soon  over  the 
western  hills.  He  was  gone  a  fortnight;  and 
one  afternoon — it  always  seems  to  me  it  was  a 
sunny  afternoon — we  saw  an  equipage  crawl 
ing  from  the  west  toward  the  old  homestead ; 
the  young  horse,  who  set  out  fat  and  prancing, 
worn  thin  and  reduced  by  a  long  journey — the 
chaise  covered  with  dust,  and  all  speaking  of 
a  terrible  crusade,  a  formidable  pilgrimage. 
Winter-evening  stories  told  me  where — to  Berk 
shire,  to  the  borders  of  New  York,  to  the  old 
domain,  owned  so  long  that  there  seemed  a  kind 
of  hereditary  love  for  it.  Many  years  passed 
away,  and  I  traveled  down  the  beautiful  Rhine. 
I  wished  to  see  the  equally  beautiful  Hudson. 
5 


66  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

I  found  myself  at  Albany;  a  few  hours' ride 
brought  me  to  Pittsfield,  and  I  went  to  the  lit 
tle  spot,  the  scene  of  this  pilgrimage — a  man 
sion — and  found  it  surrounded  by  a  beautiful 
meadow,  through  which  the  winding  river  made 
its  course  in  a  thousand  fantastic  curves;  the 
mountains  reared  their  heads  around  it,  the 
blue  air  which  makes  our  city-pale  cheeks  again 
to  deepen  with  the  hue  of  health,  coursing  about 
it  pure  and  free.  I  recognized  it  as  the  scene 
of  the  annual  pilgrimage.  Since  then  I  have 
made  an  annual  visit  to  it. 

"In  1735,  Hon.  Jacob  Wendell,  my  grandfa 
ther  in  the  maternal  line,  bought  a  township  not 
then  laid  out — the  township  of  Poontoosuck — 
and  that  little  spot  which  we  still  hold  is  the  relic 
of  twenty-four  thousand  acres  of  baronial  terri 
tory.  When  I  say  this,  no  feeling  which  can 
be  the  subject  of  ridicule  animates  my  bosom. 
I  know  too  well  that  the  hills  and  rocks  outlast 
our  families.  I  know  we  fall  upon  the  places 
we  claim,  as  the  leaves  of  the  forest  fall,  and  as 
passed  the  soil  from  the  hands  of  the  original 
occupants  into  the  hands  of  my  immediate  an 
cestors,  I  know  it  must  pass  from  me  and  mine; 
and  yet  with  pleasure  and  pride  I  feel  I  can  take 
every  inhabitant  by  the  hand  and  say,  If  I  am 
not  a  son  or  a  grandson,  or  even  a  nephew  of 
this  fair  county,  I  am  at  least  allied  to  it  by 
hereditary  relation." 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  67 


POEM  OF  WELCOME. 

Come  back  to  your  Mother,  ye  children,  for  shame, 
Who  have  wandered  like  truants,  for  riches  or  fame  ! 
With  a  smile  on  her  face  and  a  sprig  on  her  cap, 
She  calls  you  to  feast  from  her  bountiful  lap. 

Come  out  from  your  alleys,  your  courts  and  your  lanes. 
And  breathe,  like  young  eagles,  the  air  of  our  plains  : 
Take  a  whiff  from  our  fields,  and  your  excellent  wives 
Will  declare  it's  all  nonsense  insuring  your  lives. 

Come  you  of  the  law,  who  can  talk  if  you  please 
Till  the  man  in  the  moon  will  allow  it's  a  cheese, 
And  leave  "the  old  lady,  that  never  tells  lies," 
To  sleep  with  her  handkerchief  over  her  eyes. 

Ye  healers  of  men,  for  a  moment  decline 

Your  feats  in  the  rhubarb  and  ipecac  line ; 

While  you  shut  up  your  turnpike,  your  neighbors  can  go 

The  old  roundabout  road  to  the  regions  below. 

You  clerk,  on  whose  ears  are  a  couple  of  pens, 
And  whose  head  is  an  ant-hill  of  units  and  tens; 
Though  Plato  denies  you,  we  welcome  you  still 
As  a  featherless  biped,  in  spite  of  your  quill. 

Poor  drudge  of  the  city,  how  happy  he  feels 

With  the  burs  on  his  legs  and  the  grass  at  his  heels  ; 

No  dodger  behind,  his  bandanas  to  share, 

No  constable  grumbling  "You  mustn't  walk  there." 

In  yonder  green  meadow,  to  memory  dear, 

He  slaps  a  mosquito  and  brushes  a  tear ; 

The  dew-drops  hang  round  him  on  blossoms  and  shoots, 

He  breathes  but  one  sigh  for  his  youth  and  his  boots. 


68  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

There   stands  the   old   school-house,    hard  by  the  old 

church  ; 

That  tree  at  its  side  had  the  flavor  of  birch  ; 
Oh  sweet  were  the  days  of  his  juvenile  tricks, 
Though  the  prairie  of  youth  had  so  many  "big  licks." 

By  the  side  of  yon  river  he  weeps  and  he  slumps, 
His  boots  filled  with  water  as  if  they  were  pumps  ; 
Till,  sated  with  rapture,  he  steals  to  his  bed, 
With  a  glow  in  his  heart  and  a  cold  in  his  head. 

'Tis  past — he  is  dreaming — I  see  him  again  ; 
His  ledger  returns  as  by  legerdemain; 
His  neck-cloth  is  damp,  with  an  easterly  flaw, 
And  he  holds  in  his  fingers  an  omnibus  straw. 

He  dreams  the  shrill  gust  is  a  blossomy  gale, 
That  the  straw  is  a  rose  from  his  dear  native  vale ; 
And  murmurs,  unconscious  of  space  and  of  time, 
"A  i,  Extra-super — Oh,  isn't  it  PRIME!" 

Oh,  what  are  the  prizes  we  perish  to  win, 

To  the  first  little  "shiner"  we  caught  with  a  pin  ! 

No  soil  upon  earth  is  as  dear  to  our  eyes 

As  the  soil  we  first  stirred  in  terrestrial  pies ! 

Then  come  from  all  parties,  and  parts,  to  our  feast, 
Though  not  at  the  "Astor,"  we'll  give  you  at  least 
A  bite  at  an  apple,  a  seat  on  the  grass, 
And  the  best  of  cold — water — at  nothing  a  glass. 


II. 

THE   WENDELL    FAMILY. 

Jacob  Wendell  in  Boston— Connection  with  Old  Boston 
Families — Buys  Township  now  Pittsfield— His  De 
scendants—Holmes'  Genealogy— Phillips'  Geneal 
ogy—Wendell  Phillips— Oliver  Wendell  in  Pittsfield 
— Curious  Incidents— Oliver  Wendell  Fierce  for 
Moderation — Friendship  with  the  Van  Schaacks. 

DR.  HOLMES'  reference  in  his  Jubilee  speech 
to  his  great-grandfather's,  Col.  Jacob  Wendell's, 
early  property  in  the  township  of  Poontoosuck 
was  all  that  the  occasion  demanded;  or  at  least 
all  that  the  brevity  in  speeches  enjoined  by  the 
president  permitted ;  as,  with  his  usual  courtesy 
for  those  who  were  to  follow  him,  he  declined  to 
avail  himself  of  the  evident  general  desire  of  his 
listeners  to  waive  the  rule  of  limitation  in  his 
behalf.  Still  something  more  in  detail  and 
more  precise  than  family  tradition  will  have 
interest  for  many  readers. 

Jacob  Wendell  was  born  at  Albany,  in  1691, 

of  good  old  Holland  lineage.     About  the  year 

1720  he  removed  to  Boston,  where  he  prospered, 

becoming  a  wealthy  merchant,    an  influential 

69 


70  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

citizen,  a  member  of  the  Provincial  Council, 
and,  besides  other  important  civil  offices,  colo 
nel  of  the  local  militia  regiment.  He  held  this 
command  in  1744,  when  Boston  greatly  dreaded 
invasion  by  a  French  naval  armament,  and  was 
one  of  seven  magnates  who  demanded  a  town 
meeting  to  "  consider  steps  for  the  better  pro 
tection  of  the  town  and  its  approaches."  The 
steps  were  taken,  and  in  1745,  when  Governor 
Shirley,  returning  in  triumph  after  the  capture 
of  Louisburgh,  landed  at  "the  castle"  from  the 
frigate  "  Massachusetts,"  he  was  met  by  Colonel 
Wendell's  regiment  and  Colonel  Pollard's  Ca 
dets,  and  escorted  into  town  amid  the  un 
bounded  enthusiastic  demonstrations  of  the 
people;  the  day  being  "given  up  to  jollifica 
tion."  Afterward  Colonel  Wendell  was  com 
mander  of  the  "  Ancient  and  Honorable  Artillery 
Company. "  His  residence  in  Boston  was  a  brick 
mansion,  notable  for  its  time,  on  the  corner  of 
Tremont  and  School  streets,  opposite  to  that 
on  which  King's  Chapel  was  built  in  1749. 

Soon  after  Colonel  Wendell  began  business 
in  Boston  there  sprang  up  something  very  like 
a  western  fever  for  speculation  in  the  unappro 
priated  lands  in  the  county  of  Hampshire,  which 
then  included  the  present  Hampshire,  Berk 
shire,  Hampden,  and  Franklin.  In  1735  tne 
General  Court  granted  three  townships  of  these 
lands,  each  six  miles  square,  to  the  town  of 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  71 

Boston,  in  consideration  for  its  heavy  expendi 
tures  for  free  schools  and  the  support  of  its 
poor;  and  also  because  it  paid  one-fifth  of  the 
entire  annual  tax  of  the  Province. 

Certain  not  very  light  conditions  were  at 
tached  to  this  grant,  and  three  members  of  the 
Council  and  four  of  the  House  were  appointed 
a  commission  to  see  that  they  were  faithfully 
complied  with.  Colonel  Wendell  was  one  of 
the  commissioners,  and  in  1736  he  bought  at 
auction  the  inchoate  right  to  one  of  these  town 
ships,  which,  when  selected  and  the  title  to  it 
duly  confirmed,  was  Poontoosuck.  It  the  nap- 
peared  that  Colonel  Wendell  had  bought  as  well 
for  his  kinsman,  Edward  Livingston,  of  Albany, 
as  for  himself.  It  was  also  found  that  Col. 
John  Stoddard,  of  Northampton,  had  a  prior 
grant  of  1,000  acres  of  the  best  uplands,  and  had 
also  purchased  the  Indian  title  to  a  tract  in 
which  the  whole  township  was  included.  Cir 
cumstances  had  made  Colonels  Wendell  and 
Stoddard  thoroughly  and  personally  familiar 
with  the  whole  region  to  which  their  choice  was 
confined,*  and  all  the  grantees  knew  well  all 
that  in  forest  days  could  be  known  of  the  region 
which  lay  in  and  around  the  spot  which  is  now 

*Tbe  Upper  and  Lower  Housatonic  townships,  em 
bracing  what  are  now  the  towns  of  Sheffield  and  Great 
Barrington  and  the  township  now  Stockbridge  and 
West  Stockbridge,  had  already  been  appropriated. 


72  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

Pittsfield,  as  it  has  been  described  to  the  reader. 
And  they  were  so  well  satisfied  with  it  that, 
wise  men  as  they  were,  they  preferred,  rather 
than  to  make  a  new  selection,  to  compromise 
upon  a  joint  and  equal  undivided  ownership. 

The  French  and  Indian  wars  defeated  for  years 
their  repeated  earnest  efforts  to  effect  a  settle 
ment  of  the  township,  and  none  was  made  until 
1752.  But,  in  accordance  with  the  terms  of  the 
grant,  sixty-three  one-hundred-acre  settling  lots 
were  in  1738  laid  out  in  a  central  portion  of  the 
township,  in  a  compact  form.  These  were  in 
due  time  disposed  of  in  one  way  or  another. 

The  remainder  of  the  24,040  acres,  which  was 
the  exact  measurement  of  the  grant,  was  held  in 
common  until  January,  1760;  a  division  in  1752 
having,  in  1754,  on  an  appeal  by  Colonel  Wen 
dell,  been  set  aside  by  a  competent  court  as 
improperly  made.  The  abrogated  division  was 
made  on  a  petition  from  Capt.  Charles  Goodrich, 
to  whom  Colonel  Wendell  had  sold  an  undivided 
third  part  of  his  interest  in  the  "commons." 
Livingston,  in  1743,  sold  his  entire  interest  to  a 
syndicate  of  prominent  western  Massachusetts 
citizens  for  ^3,000.  Colonel  Stoddard  died  in 
1 748,  leaving  his  Poontoosuck  lands  to  his  widow 
and  his  sons,  Israel  and  Solomon,  all  afterward 
residents  of  note  in  Pittsfield.  Such  was  the 
ownership  of  the  "  commons"  lands  when  in 
January,  1760,  a  competent  and  scrupulously 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  73 

impartial  commission,  appointed  by  the  court 
with  the  approval  of  all  concerned,  rendered  a 
satisfactory  report  apportioning  them  to  the 
proprietors  in  severalty.  It  divided  the  lands 
into  squares,  averaging  about  three  hundred 
acres  in  size ;  and  carefully  classed  them  as  first, 
second,  and  third  rate  in  quality.  These  squares 
were  distributed  among  the  owners  to  whom 
they  were  respectively  assigned,  not  contigu 
ously,  but  intermixed  all  over  the  township. 
Colonel  Wendell  received  twenty-two,  and 
chance  seems  to  have  favored  him  in  the  natu 
ral  beauty  of  some  of  them.  All  of  the  north 
and  west  shores  of  Lake  Onota  fell  to  him,  and 
also  Square  No.  5,  afterward  the  farm  of  the 
Revolutionary  hero,  Israel  Dickinson ;  and  later 
the  park-like  estate  attached  to  the  summer  resi 
dence  of  Judge  Benjamin  R.  Curtis.  Its  next 
owner,  Hon.  Ensign  H.  Kellogg,  gave  it  the 
name  of  Morningside,  which  is  now  familiar  as 
that  of  a  busy  and  populous  section  of  the  city. 
The  acquisition  that  Colonel  Wendell  most 
prized,  and  which  is  also  of  most  interest  to  us 
in  the  present  connection,  was  that  comprised  in 
Squares  56  and  57,  which  included  the  Canoe 
Meadows.  In  a  plot  of  the  township  which 
must  have  been  a  Wendell  family  paper,  there 
is  written  across  the  location  of  these  squares 
this  minute:  "Colonel  Wendell's  meadow  in 
cluded  in  these  two  lots;  chiefly  valuable." 


74  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

The  old  Wendells  appreciated  this  feature,  as 
Dr.  Holmes  did  when  he  built  his  summer  villa 
on  Square  56,  to  overlook  the  meadows  and  the 
Housatonic  flowing  through  them. 

Both  Colonel  Stoddard  and  Colonel  Wendell 
plainly  looked  upon  their  Poontoosuck  purchase 
in  a  different  light  from  that  in  which  they 
viewed  other  places  in  which  they  owned  lands. 
"  The  Great  New  Englander"  died  before  settle 
ment  there  was  practicable;  but  it  was  in  ac 
cordance  with  his  wish  that  his  widow  and  sons 
made  it  their  home.  In  some  early  archives 
the  inchoate  town  is  styled  Wendellstown,  and 
Colonel  Wendell  manifested  his  kindly  feeling 
toward  it  in  many  ways,  as  many  of  his  descen 
dants  have  done;  among  them  Dr.  Holmes  and 
Wendell  Phillips — whose  lines  of  descent  we 
will  trace  in  outline. 

SOME  OF  COLONEL  WENDELL'S  DESCENDANTS. 

Jacob  Wendell  was  born,  in  1691,  at  Albany. 
His  father,  John  Wendell,  died  while  he  was  an 
infant,  and  in  1695  his  widowed  mother  mar 
ried  Capt.  John  Schuyler.  Her  maiden  name 
was  Elizabeth  Staats,  and  Jacob  was  named  for 
her  brother,  Jacob  Staats,  who  was  one  of  the 
sponsors  at  his  christening  in  the  old  Dutch 
church.  Not  long  after  his  removal  to  Boston, 
he  married  Sarah,  daughter  of  Dr.  James  Oliver, 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  75 

"  a  famous  physician  who  graduated  at  Harvard 
in  1680  and  died  in  1703."  Several  descendants 
of  this  marriage  have  made  their  mark  in  the 
political,  literary,  and  legal  history  of  Massa 
chusetts  ;  prominently  among  them  Judge  Oliver 
Wendell,  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  and  his  son, 
the  present  Judge  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes;  John 
Phillips,  the  first  Mayor  of  Boston,  and  his  son 
Wendell  Phillips. 

It  would  bewilder  any  but  the  best-trained 
genealogist  even  to  attempt  arranging  the  web 
of  direct  and  collateral  relationships  with  the 
Hutchinsons,  the  Olivers,  the  Brattles,  and  other 
provincial  Boston  gentry  into  which  Colonel 
Wendell's  marriage  introduced  Dr.  Holmes' 
ancestry;  to  say  nothing  about  interweaving  it 
with  the  vSchuylers,  Livingstons,  and  others  of 
like  degree  in  old  Dutch  rank,  with  whom  His 
torian  Henry  C.  Van  Schaack  affiliates  the 
Wendells.  It  has  been  said  that  the  poet  was 
very  proud  of  his  descent,  and  that  this  pride 
colored  both  his  life  and  many  of  his  literary 
productions.  It  may  have  manifested  itself  in 
his  Berkshire,  as  in  his  Boston,  social  life:  but 
we  scrupulously  avoid  obtruding  upon  either. 
In  his  relations  to  the  Berkshire  public  and  in 
his  Berkshire  poems,  there  is,  however,  nothing 
in  the  slightest  degree  to  indicate  ancestral 
pride,  except  the  noblesse  oblige  which  governed 
him  everywhere  and  always;  unless  his  natural 


76  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

and  necessary  allusions  to  Colonel  Wendell  in 
his  Jubilee  address  and  in  some  letters  may  be 
counted  as  such  an  indication.  We  will  there 
fore  only  state,  and  that  briefly,  the  lines  of 
descent  from  Colonel  Wendell,  of  Dr.  Holmes 
and  Wendell  Phillips ;  adding  the  latter  because 
the  two  cousins  expressed  a  like  interest  in 
Pittsfield  on  account  of  their  common  ancestor's 
relations  to  it;  and  also  because,  wide  apart  as 
the  political  agitations  of  the  country  during 
their  middle  life  drifted  them,  they  always  had 
a  true,  kindly,  cousinly  pride  in  each  other's 
genius  and  fame.* 

The  Holmes  Genealogy. — The  youngest  child  of 
Jacob  and  Sarah  [Oliver]  Wendell  was  Oliver 
Wendell,  who  was  born  in  1734.  He  married 
Mary,  daughter  of  Edward  Jackson.  Their 
daughter,  Sarah,  married  Rev.  Abiel  Holmes, 
of  Cambridge,  a  theological  and  historical 

*  We  believe  this  to  be  true  of  Dr.  Holmes  ;  and  we 
know  it  to  be  so  of  Mr.  Phillips,  as  frequent  conversa 
tions  with  him  concerning  the  genealogy  and  history  of 
the  Wendell  family  gave  us  opportunity  to  learn.  Mr. 
Phillips  had  a  decided  natural  love  for  historical  and 
genealogical  studies,  and  had  net  duty  called  him  to 
another  field  might  have  become  the  great  historian  of 
Massachusetts  who  is  still  to  come.  He  once,  with 
evident  feeling,  showed  the  present  writer  a  handsome 
volume,  compiled,  if  memory  serves  us  correctl)',  by  him 
self  ;  which  gave  an  account  of  those  of  his  ancestors 
who  are  buried  in  the  King's  Chapel  burial-ground. 


THE   POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  77 

writer  of  note ;  and  became  the  mother  of  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes. 

The  Phillips  Genealogy. — Margaret,  one  of  Colo 
nel  Wendell's  daughters,  married  William  Phil 
lips,  a  member  of  an  old  and  distinguished 
family  and  himself  lieutenant-governor  of 
Massachusetts.  Their  son,  John,  who,  in  1822, 
was  elected  the  first  mayor  of  Boston,  married 
Sarah  Whalley,  and  became  the  father  of  Wen 
dell  Phillips. 

After  Colonel  Wendell's  death  his  lands  in 
Pittsfield  were  divided  among  his  heirs,  and  the 
squares  assigned  to  each  respectively  are  desig 
nated,  on  the  chart  before  mentioned,  by  ini 
tials.  Square  56,  on  which  Dr.  Holmes  built 
his  villa,  fell  to  Oliver  Wendell  and  his  brother, 
John  Mico,  who  also  received  several  other 
squares;  some  jointly,  some  severally.  John 
Mico  Wendell  married  Catherine  Brattle,  a  de 
scendant  of  Thomas  Brattle,  the  founder  of  the 
distinguished  Boston  family  of  that  name;  and 
some  of  his  Pittsfield  land,  in  one  way  or  an 
other,  passed  into  the  hands  of  one  of  its  cadets, 
who  settled  upon  it;  thus  planting  a  branch  of 
it  in  the  town,  where  it  still  has  representatives. 
Both  the  wife  and  mother  of  John  Mico  Wen 
dell  were  descendants  of  Governors  Dudley  and 
Bradstreet.  In  1791,  Oliver  Wendell,  Cather 
ine  Wendell,  Margaret  Phillips  (grandmother 
of  Wendell  Phillips)  and  other  heirs  of  the  first 


78  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

owner  of  the  township,  still  retained  1,200  of  its 
24,000  acres  and  were  taxed  ^4  toward  the 
building  in  that  year  of  the  town's  second  meet 
ing-house:  the  same  in  which,  fifty-eight  years 
afterward,  Dr.  Holmes  read  his  famous  cattle- 
show  poem,  "The  Ploughman." 

Oliver  Wendell  was,  as  a  summer  resident 
and  owner  of  real  estate  in  Pittsfield,  more 
closely  identified  with  its  general  affairs  than 
any  other  member  of  the  Wendell  family  ;  Dr. 
Holmes'  relations  to  it  being,  except  in  the 
ownership  of  his  country-seat,  purely  of  a  liter 
ary  character.  As  to  Oliver  Wendell's  life  in 
his  ordinary  home:  Born  at  Boston  in  1734, 
and  graduating  from  Harvard  at  the  age  of 
nineteen,  he  followed  in  the  footsteps  of  his 
father  as  a  merchant;  and  in  1783  was  one  of 
the  founders  and  directors  of  the  Massachusetts 
Bank,  the  first  institution  of  the  kind  in  New 
England.  He  was  representative  from  Boston 
in  1771-72  ;  selectman  in  1 733-34 ;  and  a  delegate 
to  the  Provincial  Congresses  of  1775  and  1776, 
some  of  the  other  members  of  the  delegation 
being  John  Hancock,  Samuel  Adams,  and  Gen. 
Joseph  Warren.  After  the  Revolution  he  was 
for  several  years  one  of  the  Executive  Council 
of  the  Commonwealth,  and  for  many  judge  of 
probate  for  Suffolk  County,  and  a  trustee  of 
Harvard  College. 

During  the   Revolution,   and  in  preparation 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE   HILLS.  79 

for  it,  he  was  prominent  as  an  active  and  influ 
ential  Whig :  so  much  so  that  local  tradition  has 
it  that  early  in  the  great  struggle  he  came  to 
Pittsfield,  and  made  arrangements  with  the  oc 
cupant  of  his  farm  on  Square  56,  in  accordance 
with  which  the  lease  was  to  be  vacated  and  Mr. 
Wendell  take  possession  of  the  place  with  all 
its  appurtenances,  including  the  furniture,  in 
case  the  turn  of  affairs  at  Boston  should  drive 
him  to  the  refuge  of  the  hills;  and  that  this 
was  the  origin  of  the  family  custom  of  annually 
visiting  Pittsfield.  We  apprehend  that  in  this 
instance,  as  in  most  others,  tradition  is  truth  a 
little  scratched.  The  facts  are  probably  these : 
While  Boston  was  occupied  by  British  troops 
residence  there  was  impossible  for  a  Whig  of 
Oliver  Wendell's  standing.  Colonel  Wendell 
had  initiated  the  custom  alluded  to,  and  it  prob 
ably  suggested  to  his  son  the  convenience  of 
Pittsfield  as  a  place  of  temporary  residence, 
when  his  presence  was  not  needed  near  the  cen 
ter  of  Revolutionary  operations,  or  of  refuge  if 
any  temporary  reverse  should  befall  the  patri 
ots.  But  the  annual  pilgrimage  was  not  yet  so 
invariable  as  it  afterward  became,  and  the  de 
tails  of  preparation  for  it  at  the  farm  were  not 
so  complete.  What  Mr.  Wendell  did  was,  we 
fancy,  to  make  arrangements  to  remedy  this. 
In  the  earliest  years  of  the  Revolution  and  those 
immediately  preceding  it,  the  Tory  element  in 


8o  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

Pittsfield  was  suppressed  with  a  strong  hand; 
but  it  had  been  powerful,  and  was  still  far  from 
being  annihilated.  Its  leaders  were  secretly  in 
conference  with  the  British  generals,  and,  if  the 
Royal  Government  of  the  Province  had  been 
fully  and  permanently  restored,  Pittsfield  would 
have  been  no  more  safe  as  a  refuge  from  its 
vengeance  than  Boston  itself,  however  it  might 
have  been  with  some  of  the  neighboring  moun 
tain  towns,  with  their  rugged  recesses. 

This  much  at  least  is  certain,  that  Judge  Wen 
dell  did  firmly  establish  and  make  definite 
arrangements  for  the  custom  of  keeping  a  resi 
dent  farmer  upon  the  place  and  making  an 
annual  pilgrimage  to  it;  and  that  he  did  him 
self  adhere  to  it  very  rigidly.  And  therewith 
is  connected  a  tradition  quaint  enough  to  have 
pleased  a  humorist  like  the  author  of  the  won 
derful  "One-Hoss  Shay."  Gentlemen  of  his 
class  and  time  knew  how  to  criticise  the  luxu 
ries  of  the  table  and  the  proprieties  of  cookery 
quite  as  well  at  least  as  the  most  accomplished 
diner-out  now  does.  A  modern  reader  new  to 
mildewed  manuscripts  would  often  be  surprised 
to  come  across,  in  their  letters  and  diaries,  glow 
ing  descriptions  of  dinners  technically  accurate 
even  to  the  elaborate  menu  du  repas;  and  he 
might  be  still  more  astonished  to  read  their 
praises  of  rare  and  luxurious  viands  well  served 
at  taverns  far  inland,  as,  for  instance,  in  Ver- 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  81 

mont.  Nevertheless  Judge  Wendell,  in  some  of 
his  earlier  rides  from  Boston  to  Berkshire,  had 
so  disagreeable  experience  of  country  tavern 
dinners  that  it  demanded  a  remedy;  and  he  de 
vised  one.  His  favorite  dish,  when  the  variety 
afforded  by  his  own  table  was  not  to  be  had, 
was  roast  or  broiled  chicken ;  but  he  saw  that 
his  order  for  it  at  his  wayside  inn  was  invari 
ably  instantly  followed  by  a  mad  rush  for  the 
barnyard,  where,  after  a  breathless  chase,  an 
unhappy  fowl  was  hunted  down,  slaughtered, 
perhaps  before  his  eyes,  and  served  up  to  him 
before  the  life  was  well  out  of  its  body.  Dis 
gusted  by  this  barbarism,  he  ever  afterward,  be 
fore  he  left  home  to  cross  the  mountains,  had  a 
dressed  fowl  placed  in  his  carriage  to  be  cooked 
and  eaten  at  the  tavern  where  he  first  dined; 
and  where  he  was  supplied  with  another  pre 
pared  in  the  same  way,  to  undergo  a  like  season 
ing  for  the  next  day's  repast;  and  so  on  for  the 
three,  four,  or  more  days  of  his  journey. 

A  lady,  now  long  since  passed  away,  used  to 
speak  of  the  carriage  in  which  Judge  Wendell 
made  these  journeys  and  rode  about  town  as  a 
marvel  of  magnificence  in  her  childhood's  eyes 
and  in  those  of  her  young  companions,  who  went 
out  to  meet  its  coming  as  those  of  later  days  do 
that  of  a  circus.  But  the  only  one  of  its  splen 
dors  that  she  could  distinctly  recall  was  the  green 
blinds,  which  it  seems  answered  for  curtains. 
6 


82  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

Decided  as  Judge  Wendell's  political  princi 
ples  were,  and  ardent  as  was  his  Revolutionary 
zeal,  he  was  yet  so  noted  for  liberality  to  those 
who  differed  from  him  in  sentiment  and  action 
that  his  compatriots  pronounced  him  "  fierce  for 
moderation."  Some  instances  illustrative  of 
this  trait  in  his  character  have  a  local  Pittsfield 
flavor.  In  1777  Peter  and  Henry  Van  Schaack, 
citizens  of  much  distinction  in  Albany  and 
Kinderhook,  refusing  to  take  the  oath  of  alle 
giance  to  the  government  newly  established  in 
New  York  after  the  Declaration  of  Indepen 
dence,  were  "  exiled:"  that  is,  placed  under  sur 
veillance  in  places  assigned  them  for  residence 
in  other  States ;  in  some  of  which  they  suffered 
pretty  rough  usage  in  the  way  of  close  confine 
ment  and  otherwise.  Boston  and  Pittsfield, 
however,  were  not  among  these  inhospitable 
involuntary  homes,  notwithstanding  the  in 
tense  radicalism  of  the  Pittsfield  Whigs. 
Henry  Van  Schaack,  being  permitted  to  choose 
a  residence  in  one  of  several  Berkshire  towns, 
after  brief  trials  of  Stockbridge  and  Richmond, 
selected  Pittsfield.  In  Berkshire  he  suffered 
little  persecution  for  opinion's  sake,  being  per 
haps  protected  by  the  personal  friendship  of 
Theodore  Sedgwick,  who  was  as  "  fierce  for 
moderation"  as  Oliver  Wendell,  who  appears 
to  have  intermitted  his  visits  to  Pittsfield  in 
some  of  the  latter  years  of  the  Revolution.  At 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  83 

any  rate,  Mr.  Van  Schaack,  a  man  of  property 
and  of  much  intellectual  ability,  had  so  pleas 
ant  experience  of  the  place  of  his  captivity  that 
he  bought  the  confiscated  estate  of  a  brother 
loyalist  who  had  fled  to  England,  and,  after  the 
peace,  built  upon  it  the  spacious  and  substantial 
mansion  now  known  as  Broadhall,  and  lived  in 
it  many  years,  an  active,  public-spirited,  and 
influential  citizen  of  the  town,  and  a  devoted 
trustee  of  Williams  College. 

Peter  Van  Schaack's  son,  Henry  C.  Van 
Schaack,  of  Manlius,  N.  Y.,  published  a  memoir 
of  his  father  and  left  in  manuscript  one  of  his 
uncle  and  namesake;  from  which  we  condense 
his  statements  of  their  relations  with  Judge 
Wendell. 

When  Peter  Van  Schaack  went  to  Boston,  an 
exile,  in  February,  1777,  "he  experienced  very 
liberal  and  gentlemanly  treatment  from  Oliver 
Wendell,  one  of  the  leading  patriots  of  the 
Massachusetts  Bay.  This  gentleman  evidently 
discovered  that,  in  the  person  of  the  exile,  no 
common  character  had  been  sent  to  the  select 
men  of  Boston ;  while  the  latter  was  deeply 
impressed  by  the  consideration  and  humanity 
exhibited  toward  him,  a  perfect  stranger  to  the 
place,  its  inhabitants,  and  public  authorities,  and 
with  naught  to  recommend  him  but  his  frank 
and  elevated  gentlemanly  appearance  and  con 
versation,  during  a  few  days'  stay  in  town. 


84  THE   POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

The  acquaintance  formed  under  so  forbidding 
circumstances  led  to  a  long  and  interesting  cor 
respondence,  some  portion  of  which  has  been 
published.  ..."  After  Henry  Van  Schaack 
became  a  citizen  of  Massachusetts,  he  visited 
Boston,  and  "  made  a  point  of  calling  upon 
Judge  Wendell  with  no  other  introduction  than 
his  personal  representation  that  he  came  to  re 
turn  his  thanks  for  Mr.  Wendell's  conduct 
toward  his  brother,  when  he  was  exiled  to  Bos 
ton  in  1777.  This  call  resulted  in  an  acquaint 
ance  that  immediately  ripened  into  a  close  and 
lasting  friendship;  during  which  they  kept  up 
an  intimate  correspondence." 

It  might  be  suspected  that  the  intimate 
friendship  of  Messrs.  Wendell  and  Van  Schaack 
was,  at  least  in  part,  due  to  the  fact  that,  in 
the  bitter  political  strife  which  resulted  in  the 
adoption  of  the  Federal  Constitution,  and  the 
organization  of  the  Federal  and  Democratic 
parties,  both  were  Federalists  of  the  most  ex 
treme  type,  and  never  ceased  to  be  so.  But 
another  incident  showed  him  equally  kind  and 
courteous  to  his  Democratic  opponents.  Rev. 
Thomas  Allen,  the  first  Pittsfield  minister,  was 
very  far  from  being  "  fierce  for  moderation"  in 
his  Jeffersonian  Democracy.  His  son  of  the 
same  name,  a  young  man  of  the  highest  prom 
ise  for  political  eminence,  was  equally  devoted 
to  the  same  principles,  although  manifestation 


THE   POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  85 

of  his  feeling  was  doubtless  modified  by  a  more 
intimate  acquaintance  with  the  world  beyond 
the  mountains.  He  was  the  idol  of  the  Demo 
cratic  party  in  Pittsfield ;  but  he  died  in  Boston 
while  representing  the  town  in  the  Legislature 
of  1806,  and  was  buried  in  the  King's  Chapel 
tomb  of  the  Federal  Wendells.  Remembering 
what  the  town  of  Pittsfield  was  to  the  Wendell 
family,  such  a  burial  would  seem  not  at  all  re 
markable,  but  rather  a  matter-of-course,  had 
personal  feeling  between  political  opponents 
been  as  it  is  to-day;  but  in  the  early  part  of  the 
century  personal  antipathies  were  so  interwoven 
with  political  antagonisms  that  this  must  be 
counted  another  evidence  of  Judge  Wendell's 
exceptional  kindly  courtesy. 

Nevertheless,  nothing  hindered  his  hearty 
maintenance  of  his  Federalism  in  his  country 
home,  where  he  was  inspiring  and  helpful  to 
his  fellows  in  politics.  At  that  time  political 
feeling  in  Pittsfield  disturbed  church  and 
parochial  harmony  to  such  an  extent  that  the 
Federal  church  members  and  parishioners  were 
driven  to  organize  a  separate  church  and  sepa 
rate  parish;  and  finally  to  erect  a  meeting 
house.  In  all  this,  they  had  the  warm  sympathy 
of  the  Boston  Federalists;  but  none  of  them 
appear  to  have  contributed  pecuniary  aid  ex 
cept  Judge  Wendell,  who  gave  liberally  toward 
the  building  of  the  meeting-house  and  the  sup- 


86  THE   POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

port  in  it  of  public  worship,  which  he  attended 
regularly  when  he  was  in  town.  In  1817  the 
two  churches  and  parishes  were  reunited  as  the 
First  Congregational;  and  among  the  church 
plate  there  is  still  a  solid  silver  christening- 
bowl  that  was  presented  by  him  to  the  Union 
Church.  His  voluntary  contribution  for  the 
building  of  the  Union  meeting-house  was  much 
larger  than  the  tax  that  was  assessed  upon  him 
and  other  Wendell  heirs  for  the  building  of  that 
erected  in  1791.  It  is  a  curious  instance  of  the 
incidental  connection  of  minor  and  widely  sepa 
rated  events,  that  in  1849  Dr.  Holmes  saw  the 
accidental  burning  of  the  long-disused  Union 
meeting-house,  and  that  it  probably  suggested 
to  him  these  fine  lines  in  "  The  Astrea,"  written 
in  1850. 

"The  oriole  drifting  like  a  flake  of  fire, 
Torn  by  a  whirlwind  from  a  blazing  spire. " 


III. 

DR.    HOLMES'   SUMMER    VILLA    AND    LIFE 
IN    IT. 

The  Villa— Letters  to  a  Pittsfield  Lady  and  Her  Remi 
niscences—Letter  to  a  School-Teacher — Blackber 
ries  and  other  Berries— The  Canoe  Meadows— The 
Holmes  Pine. 

IN  the  summer  of  1848,  four  years  after  the 
Jubilee,  Dr.  Holmes  built  a  pretty  villa,  crown 
ing  a  knoll  on  his  inherited  estate :  a  plain,  neat 
structure  well  adapted  to  his  purposes.  In  his 
journal  of  August  5,  1848,  Longfellow  wrote: 
"  Drove  over,  in  the  afternoon,  to  Dr.  Holmes' 
house  on  the  old  Wendell  farm — a  snug  little 
place,  with  views  of  the  river  and  the  moun 
tains."  This  is  tersely  truthful.  The  river 
and  the  mountains  gave  the  house  its  charm 
for  its  owner,  who  never  tired  of  their  praises. 
Every  reader  of  "  The  Autocrat"  will  remember 
his  fondness  also  for  trees  and  his  dissertation 
upon  the  specific  merits  of  those  distinguished 
for  merit.  We  suspect  that  his  friend,  Dr. 
Orville  Dewey,  enjoyed  his  eulogy  upon  the 
Sheffield  Elm,  which  he  described  as  "equally 
87 


88  THE   POET  AMONG    THE   HILLS. 

remarkable  for  size  and  for  perfection  of  form." 
He  had  "seen  nothing  in  Berkshire  County  that 
came  near  it,  and  few  to  compare  with  it  any 
where."  His  irreverent  remark  that  "the  poor 
old  Pittsfield  Elm  lived  on  its  past  reputa 
tion,"  and  that  "  a  wig  of  false  leaves  was  indis 
pensable  to  make  it  presentable,"  might  be  less 
palatable  to  the  lovers  of  that  venerable — and 
now  fallen — tree,  did  they  fail  to  consider  that  it 
was  written,  not  unkindly,  but  in  the  same 
spirit  that  dictated  the  poem  of  "  The  Last 
Leaf." 

But,  well  as  Dr.  Holmes  loved  trees,  his 
Holmes  Road  farm,  when  he  determined  to 
build  a  summer  home  upon  it,  was  almost  en 
tirely  destitute  of  them.  Thanks  to  him,  as  we 
shall  see,  it  is  now  very  far  from  that.  But,  in 
telling  of  this  home  and  Dr.  Holmes'  life  in  it, 
we  must  call  in  valuable  aid.  It  is  our  general 
design  to  avoid  all  mention  of  Dr.  Holmes' 
private  life  in  Pittsfield;  as  one  not  personally 
familiar  with  it  would  be  likely  to  commit 
blunders,  and  probable  injustice.  Remember 
ing,  however,  a  Pittsfield  lady  who,  like  her 
distinguished  husband,  was  long  an  intimate 
friend  of  Dr.  Holmes,  and  his  frequent  corre 
spondent  down  to  his  latest  years,  the  impulse 
was  irresistible  to  fill  what  would  otherwise 
have  been  "  an  aching  void,"  by  soliciting  some 
reminiscences  of  the  poet  and  such  extracts 


THE   POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  89 

from  his  letters  as  would  serve  to  illustrate  his 
local  verse,  the  life  he  enjoyed  while  writing 
it,  and  his  feeling  toward  the  town.  What  fol 
lows  is  due  to  her  kindly  acquiescence. 

REMINISCENT. 

"  Dr.  Holmes'  life  in  Pittsfield  was  fascinating 
to  him,  and  to  those  who  knew  him  here.  Pass 
ing  parts  of  fifteen  years  in  Boston,  we  knew 
him  and  his  family  there,  visiting  them  in  both 
their  Montgomery  Place  and  Charles  Street 
residences.  When  they  came  to  make  their 
summer  home  on  Holmes  Road  we  often  ex 
changed  visits.  We  frequently  drove  over  at 
twilight,  when  the  poet  was  at  his  best,  and 
would  show  us,  from  his  library  windows,  ani 
mals  and  birds  in  the  outlines  of  the  eastern 
hills;  or,  what  pleased  him  most,  'General 
Taylor  mounted  on  his  horse. '  When  the 
shadows  deepened,  so  that  he  could  no  longer 
see  these  phantasms,  which  even  daylight  did 
not  reveal  to  us,  he  would  say :  *  Now,  come 
into  the  dining-room,  and  we  will  have  some 
caviare  to  the  general.' 

"  He  was  not  a  '  society  man' — observe  what  a 
wide  difference  in  significance  there  is  between 
'society'  and  'social,'  when  they  are  used  as 
adjectives.  Once,  by  much  persuasion,  he  was 
induced  to  attend  the  first  evening  party  that 


90  THE   POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

was  given  by  a  lady  nearly  connected  by  mar 
riage  with  the  poet  Longfellow's  wife;  but  he 
was  ill  at  ease;  and  during  the  evening  I  said 
to  him:  'Why,  you  are  just  like  a  boy!'  The 
reply  was  ready:  'I  like  that!'  he  exclaimed, 
'the  best  compliment  of  my  life!'  " 

EXTRACTS  FROM  DR  HOLMES'  LETTERS. 

February ',  1856. — I  have  many  nibbles  for  my 
place  in  Pittsfield,  from  Boston  and  New  York; 
but  it  takes  many  nibbles  to  make  a  bite. 

January  15,  1857. — Seven  sweet  summers,  the 
happiest  of  my  life.  I  wouldn't  exchange  the 
recollection  of  them  for  a  suburban  villa.  One 
thing  I  shall  always  be  glad  of;  that  I  planted 
seven  hundred  trees  for  somebody  to  sit  in  the 
shade  of. 

July  22,  1865. — I  like  to  see  worthless  rich 
people  succumb  to  the  deserving  poor  who,  be 
ginning  with  sixpence  or  nothing,  come  out  at 
last  on  Beacon  Street,  and  have  the  sun  in  their 
windows  all  the  year  round.  [A  bit  of  sarcasm 
in  this?— ED.] 

July  16,  1872. — I  am  a  pretty  well-seasoned 
old  stick  of  timber  or  you  would  have  brought 
me  to  your  purpose  [to  obtain  a  poem  from  him 
at  the  dedication  of  the  soldiers'  monument  in 
the  Pittsfield  Park,  when  George  William  Cur 
tis  delivered  the  oration].  I  have  glorified  your 


THE   POET  AMONG    THE   HILLS.  91 

ploughman  and  tried  to  sanctify  your  cemetery. 
But  I  am  older  now — set  in  my  ways.  I  want 
to  put  away  all  such  things,  lay  up  my  heels 
and  read  story-books. — No!  my  dear  madame; 
you  cannot  coax  me — but  it  grieves  me  to  say 
"  No,"  to  you. 

December  8,  1885. — When  you  meet  any  one 
who,  you  think,  remembers  me,  say  that  I  am 
still  loyal  to  the  old  place,  .  .  .  and  that  the 
very  stones  of  it  are  as  dear  to  me  as  were  those 
of  Jerusalem  to  the  ancient  Hebrews. 

January  i,  1885. — A  Happy  New  Year !  And 
as  many  such  as  you  can  count,  until  you  reach 
a  hundred;  and  then  begin  again,  if  you  like 
this  planet  well  enough.  ...  I  delight  in  re 
calling  the  old  scenes.  Changed  they  must  be  ; 
yet  I  seem  to  be  carried  back  to  the  broad  [East. 
— ED.]  street,  our  usual  drive  on  our  way  from 
the  "  Four  Corners"  and  "  Canoe  Meadows"  [The 
Wendell  Farm],  as  my  mother  told  me  they 
called  it.  It  seems  too  bad  to  take  away  the 
town's  charming  characteristics;  but  such  a 
healthful,  beautiful,  central  situation  could  not 
resist  its  destiny;  and  you  must  have  a  mayor, 
aldermen,  and  common  council.  But  Greylock 
will  remain,  and  you  cannot  turn  the  course  of 
the  Housatonic.  I  cannot  believe  that  it  is 
thirty  years  since  I  said  "  Good-bye,"  expecting 
to  return  the  next  season.  As  we  passed  the 
gate  under  the  maple  which  may  stand  there 


92  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

now,  we  turned  and  looked  at  the  house  and  at 
the  Great  Pine  which  stood — and  I  hope  still 
stands — in  its  solitary  grandeur  and  beauty ; 
passed  the  two  bridges  to  the  railroad  station — 
and,  Good-bye,  Dear  Old  Folks! 

February  7,  1891. — I  do  so  love  to  hear  about 
dear  old  Pittsfield:  what  is  done  there  and  who 
does  it ;  how  the  new  city  gets  on  ;  and  all  the  rest. 

March  12,  1891. — You  are  to  be  a  city.  Think 
of  my  little  boy  a  Judge  and  able  to  send  me  to 
jail  if  I  do  not  behave  myself.  I  have  given 
up  my  professorship,  and  am  now  in  my  literary 
shirt-sleeves. 

October  12,  itfyj. — What  a  grand  spunky  town, 
Pittsfield  is!  You  are  to  have  "The  Ancient 
and  Honorable  there;"  of  which  my  great 
grandfather,  Jacob  Wendell,  was  colonel, — 
Great  changes;  but  Greylock,  the  Housatonic 
and  Pontoosuc  still  exist. 

December  14,  1893. — Dear  old  Pittsfield!  shall 
I  ever  have  spunk  enough  to  take  another  look 
at  it?  It  would  be  both  a  pleasure  and  a  poign 
ant  ache.  The  old  outlines  are  there.  The 
trees  I  planted  would  look  kindly  down  upon 
me.  But,  alas!  how  much  would  be  missing! 
And  then,  you  are  getting  so  grand  and  New 
Yorky,  I  should  be  lost  in  its  splendor  and 
wealth. 

July  24,  1894. — It  tires  me  to  write  now.  I 
cannot  give  your  letters  to  my  secretary.  My 


THE    GREAT    PINE    AT   HOLMES'   VILLA. 
Pittsfield,  Mass. 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  93 

eyes  are  dim — my  fingers  crampy. — Were  I 
forty  years  old,  instead  of  three-score  and 
twenty-four,  I  would  try  to  buy  my  old  place, 
just  as  it  was,  and  be  once  more  your  summer 
neighbor.  My  habits  are  fixed.  I  am  ill. 
Write  and  aid  my  convalescence  with  a  lively 
manifesto  from  our  blessed  city  of  Pittsfield. 
The  pendulum  has  a  very  short  range  of  oscil 
lation. 

"Alas!  it  soon  forever  ceased  to  vibrate," 
adds  his  favored  correspondent. 

LETTER  TO  A  SCHOOL-TEACHER. 

We  will  quote  one  more  characteristic  letter 
of  Dr.  Holmes,  which  is  cumulative  as  regards 
much  in  those  already  given;  but  which  is  also 
evidence  of  the  great  author's  kindly  regard  for 
the  little  people  who  are  to  be  the  future  read 
ers  of  all  authors,  and  his  appreciation  of  those 
who  are  preparing  them  to  be  intelligent  ones. 
It  was  written  to  Miss  Fannie  E.  Brewster,  a 
teacher  in  one  of  the  Pittsfield  grammar  schools, 
who,  in  preparing  her  class  for  a  rhetorical  exer 
cise  upon  the  life  and  works  of  Dr.  Holmes, 
asked  him  for  a  few  words,  to  give  them  a 
keener  interest  in  it.  He  replied  promptly  and 
pleasantly  in  a  letter  that  will  interest  school 
teachers  and  all  who  love  children, — as  who 
that  has  a  heart  does  not? — as  follows: 


94  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

BOSTON,  May  22,  1884. 
MY  DEAR  Miss  BREWSTER: 

I  drop  all  the  papers  in  my  hand,  to  write 
those  few  words  you  ask  me  for.  The  memory 
of  Pittsfield  is  dear  to  me.  How  can  I  forget 
the  seven  blissful  summers  passed  there?  Most 
of  my  old  Pittsfield  friends  are  gone;  but,  if  the 
younger  generation  still  recall  my  name,  I  feel 
as  if  I  had  yet  a  home  among  you.  Give  my 
warm  regards  and  best  wishes  to  my  young 
friends;  and  believe  me, 

Very  truly  yours, 

OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES. 

There  are  passages  in  some  of  Dr.  Holmes' 
prose  writings  which  show  how  observant  he 
was  of  features  in  the  region  about  his  villa,  that 
challenge  observation  less  boldly  than  the  moun 
tains,  the  rivers,  and  the  meadows;  and  they 
show  how  suggestive  of  thought  even  little 
things  were  to  him.  In  one  of  his  books  he 
says : 

"  In  Pittsfield  I  missed  the  huckleberry,  the 
bayberry,  the  sweet  fern,  and  the  barberry.  At 
least  there  were  none  near  my  residence,  so  far 
as  I  know.  But  we  have  blackberries — a  great 
number  of  the  high-bush  kind.  I  wonder  if 
others  have  observed  what  an  imitative  fruit  it 
is.  I  have  tasted  the  strawberry,  the  pineapple, 
and  I  do  not  know  how  many  other  flavors  in  it. 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  95 

If  you  think  a  little  and  have  read  Darwin  and 
Huxley,  perhaps  you  will  believe  that  it  and 
all  the  fruits  it  tastes  of  may  have  come  from  a 
common  progenitor." 

For  Dr.  Holmes  the  blackberry  seems  to  have 
been  among  berries  what  the  mocking-bird  is 
among  birds.  It  would  not  be  strange  if  the 
reader,  the  next  time  he  enjoys  a  plate  of  black 
berries — or  better,  when  he  eats  them  fresh  from 
the  bush — should  be  enabled  by  this  paragraph 
to  detect  some  of  these  borrowed  flavors. 

The  sweet  fern  grows  in  abundance  along  the 
base  of  the  Taconic  hills  some  four  or  five  miles 
west  of  Dr.  Holmes'  residence,  and  some  of 
their  summits  are  prolific  of  blueberries.  To 
be  sure  the  blueberry  imperfectly  supplies  the 
place  of  the  luscious  black  huckleberry ;  but 
then  the  huckleberry  bush  is  often  underlaid 
by  a  rattlesnake  or  two,  while  Pittsfield  is  as 
free  as  Ireland  itself  from  that  terror  of  rocky 
and  swampy  lands.  A  few  bushes  of  the  bar 
berry  grow  sporadically  on  the  hills,  but  they 
do  not  take  kindly,  or  unkindly,  to  the  soil,  and 
cover  acres  of  it  with  their  prickly,  although 
prettily  adorned  and  spicily  fruited,  brambles, 
as  they  do  in  eastern  Massachusetts  and  New 
Hampshire. 

Here  is  another  instance  of  Dr.  Holmes' 
thoughtful  observation  of  little  things  about  his 
residence:  The  Canoe  Meadows  on  his  estate, 


g6  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

so  often  mentioned  in  our  story, — and  on  which 
he  looked  with  pride  from  his  library  windows 
and  the  pleasant  rear  piazza  of  his  villa — were 
so  named  because  the  Stockbridge  Indians  were 
accustomed  to  leave  their  birch  canoes  in  them 
while  they  visited  the  graves  of  their  fathers 
near  the  opposite  shore  of  the  Housatonic,  which 
flows  through  them;  and  probably  also  while 
hunting  or  trapping  in  the  neighborhood.  This 
is  his  statement  of  and  comment  on  his  aborigi 
nal  findings  there : 

"  At  Cantabridge  near  the  sea,  I  have  once  or 
twice  turned  up  an  Indian  arrowhead  in  a  fresh 
furrow.  At  Canoe  Meadows  in  the  Berkshire 
mountains,  I  have  found  Indian  arrowheads. 
So  everywhere,  Indian  arrowheads.  Whether 
a  hundred  or  a  thousand  years  old,  who  knows? 
and  who  cares?  There  is  no  history  to  the  red 
race.  ...  A  few  instincts  walking  about  on 
legs,  and  holding  a  tomahawk: — There  is  the 
Indian  for  all  time." 

There  is  an  underlying  touch  of  pathos  in 
Dr.  Holmes'  mention  of  the  great  pine  upon 
which  his  last  look  lingered  when  for  the  last 
time  he  left  his  home  by  the  Housatonic.  It 
was  the  only  large  and  handsome  tree  on  his 
estate  when  he  inherited  it,  and  we  seem  to  re 
member  a  statement  regarding  it,  from  his  own 
pen,  more  extended  than  that  quoted.  But, 
like  many  similar  memories,  it  may  be  only 


THE   POET  AMONG    THE   HILLS.  97 

seeming.  At  least,  we  cannot,  for  the  life  of 
us,  recall  when,  and  in  what  work,  we  read  it, 
if  we  read  it  at  all ;  and  the  seeming1  may  have 
come  from  conversation  or  a  dream.  We  can 
and  do,  however,  present  a  fine  portrait  of  the 
noble  tree,  from  which  a  fair  conception  of  it, 
as  it  now  stands,  may  be  gained. 
7 


IV. 

A  VISION  OF  THE   HOUSATONIC  RIVER. 

Dr.  Holmes  Loved  the  River— Remembered  It  by  the 
English  River  Cam — Loved  also  by  Many  Men  and 
Women  of  Letters — The  Poem. 

Dr.  Holmes'  affection  for  the  Housatonic 
River,  and  his  pride  in  its  graceful  winding 
through  his  ancestral  acres,  within  sight  from 
his  library  windows,  were  manifested  on  every 
fitting  opportunity.  Probably  as  a  humorist 
and  proprietor  of  the  Canoe  Meadows,  and  per 
haps  as  a  "medicine  man"  as  well,  he  approved 
the  time-honored  local  pun  that  the  best  of  all 
tonics  is  the  Housatonic.  A  striking  instance 
of  his  fond  memory  of  the  familiar  stream  ap 
pears  in  his  "  Hundred  Days  Trip  to  Europe"  in 
1886.  During  his  visit  to  England  he  received 
the  honorary  degree  of  LL.  D.  from  the  Univer 
sity  of  Cambridge,  there  being  some  very 
flattering  demonstrations  of  approval  by  the  as 
sembly  while  the  ceremony  of  conferring  it 
was  going  on.  He  gives  a  modest  account  of 
it  in  his  book,  and  a  pleasing  one  of  the  old  col 
lege  town.  But  even  on  an  occasion  when  a 
98 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE   HILLS.  99 

good  degree  of  personal  pride  would  have  been 
pardonable,  he  did  not  forget  his  old  home,  and 
his  closing  paragraph  of  the  story  is  this : 

"  The  University  left  a  very  deep  impression 
on  my  mind,  in  which  a  few  grand  objects  pre 
dominate  over  all  the  rest;  all  being  delightful. 
I  was  fortunate  enough  to  see  the  gathering  of 
the  boats,  which  is  the  last  scene  in  the  annual 
procession.  The  show  was  altogether  lovely. 
The  pretty  river  [the  Cam]  about  as  wide  as  the 
Housatonic,  I  should  judge,  as  that  slender 
stream  flows  through  Canoe  Meadow — my  old 
Pittsfield  residence — the  gaily  dressed  people 
who  crowded  the  banks,  the  boats  with  the  gal 
lant  young  oarsmen  who  handled  them  so  skill 
fully  made  a  picture  not  often  excelled." 

Dr.  Holmes  was  not  alone  in  his  appreciation 
of 

"The  gentle  river  winding  free 
Through  realms  of  peace  and  liberty." 

Long  ago,  when  the  Housatonic  wound  its 
sinuous  way  through  an  almost  unbroken  and 
not  altogether  peaceful  forest,  the  great  student 
of  man's  will,  Jonathan  Edwards,  recognized 
its  beauty,  and,  doubtless,  resting  now  and  then 
from  herculean  labors  in  his  liliputian  mental 
workshop  at  Stockbridge,  strolled  across  the 
street  to  enjoy  it,  and  be  soothed  by  the  "  war 
bling  tone"  of  its  rippling  waters.  Since  that 


zoo  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

great  thinker  bade  it  adieu,  other  great  thinkers 
of  thoughts  far  other  than  his,  but  loving  it  as 
he  did,  have  celebrated  it  in  prose  and  verse 
until  now  it  is  well-nigh  the  most  classic  of 
American  streams.  Among  those  who  have 
contributed  to  its  fame,  most  of  them  having 
either  permanent  or  temporary  homes  near  its 
banks,  are  Catherine  Sedgwick,  William  Cullen 
Bryant,  David  Dudley  Field,  Herman  Melville, 
Henry  Ward  Beecher,  Nathaniel  Hawthorne, 
Fanny  Kemble,  Lydia  Huntley  Sigourney, 
Henry  W.  Longfellow,  and  Dr.  William  Allen, 
besides  scores  of  minor  writers.  Its  most  marked 
tribute  from  Dr.  Holmes'  pen  is  "  THE  VISION  OF 
THE  HOUSATONIC  RIVER,"  which  was  written 
and  used  as  an  epilogue  to  its  author's  lecture 
on  Wordsworth.  The  reader  will  bear  in  mind 
its  original  purpose;  and  also  that  the  book  re 
ferred  to  in  the  eighth  verse  is  Wordsworth's 
poems,  with  their  introduction  of  English  scen 
ery,  meadow-flora,  and  bird-life.  In  lieu  of  the 
lecture,  we  will  preface  the  "Vision"  with  what 
the  Autocrat  wrote  of  the  Housatonic  and  its  sur 
roundings  in  very  poetic  prose.  After  dwelling 
awhile  on  pleasant  memories  of  a  favorite  Con 
necticut  resort,  the  Autocrat  continues: 

"  And  again,  once  more  among  those  other 
hills  that  shut  in  the  amber-flowing  Housatonic, 
— dark  stream,  but  clear,  like  lucid  orbs  that 
shine  between  the  lids  of  auburn-haired,  sherry- 


THE  POET  AMONG    TtfE  MILLS.          j'f>i 

wine-eyed  demi-blondes, — in  the  home  over 
looking  the  winding  stream  and  the  smooth  flat 
meadow;  looked  down  upon  by  wild  hills, 
where  the  tracks  of  bears  and  catamounts  may 
yet  sometimes  be  seen  on  the  winter  snow ;  fac 
ing  the  twin  summits  which  rise,  far  north — 
the  highest  waves  of  the  great  land-storm  in  all 
this  billowy  region — suggestive  to  mad  fancies 
of  the  breasts  of  a  half-buried  Titaness,  stretched 
out  by  a  stray  thunderbolt  and  hastily  hidden 
away  beneath  the  leaves  of  the  forest :  in  that 
home  where  seven  blessed  summers  were  passed, 
which  stand  in  memory  like  the  Seven  Golden 
Candlesticks  in  the  beatific  vision  of  the  holy 
dreamer  .  .  .  this  long  articulated  -sigh  of 
reminiscences — this  calenture  which  shows  me 
the  maple-shaded  plains  of  Berkshire  and  the 
mountain-circled  green  of  Grafton." 

THE  VISION. 

Come,  spread  your  wings  as  I  spread  mine 

And  leave  the  crowded  hall, 
For  where  the  eyes  of  twilight  shine 

O'er  evening's  western  wall. 

These  are  the  pleasant  Berkshire  hills, 

Each  with  its  leafy  crown  ; 
Hark  !  from  their  sides  a  thousand  rills 

Come  singing  sweetly  down. 

A  thousand  rills ;  they  leap  and  shine, 
Strained  through  the  mossy  nooks, 


102  THE   POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

Till,  clasped  in  many  a  gathering  twine, 
They  swell  a  hundred  brooks. 

A  hundred  brooks,  and  still  they  run 
With  ripple,  shade,  and  gleam, 

Till  clustering  all  their  braids  in  one, 
They  flow  a  single  stream. 

A  bracelet,  spun  from  mountain  mist, 

A  silvery  sash  unwound, 
With  ox-bow  curve  and  sinuous  twist, 

It  writhes  to  reach  the  "Sound." 

This  is  my  bark  ;  a  pigmy's  ship  ; 

Beneath  a  child  it  rolls ; 
Fear  not ;  one  body  makes  it  dip, 

But  not  a  thousand  souls. 

Float  we  the  grassy  banks  between ; 

Without  an  oar  we  glide  ; 
The  meadows,  sheets  of  living  green, 

Unroll  on  either  side. 

Come,  take  the  book  we  love  so  well, 
And  let  us  read  and  dream. 

We  see  whate'er  its  pages  tell 
And  sail  an  English  stream. 

Up  to  the  clouds  the  lark  has  sprung, 

Still  trilling  as  he  flies ; 
The  linnet  sings  as  there  he  sung ; 

The  unseen  cuckoo  cries  ; 

And  daisies  strew  the  banks  along, 
And  yellow  kingcups  shine, 

With  cowslips  and  a  primrose  throng, 
And  humble  celandine. 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  103 

Ah,  foolish  dream  !  When  Nature  nursed 

Her  daughter  in  the  West, 
Europe  had  drained  one  fountain  first ; 

She  bared  her  other  breast. 

On  the  young  planet's  orient  shore 

Her  morning  hand  she  tried  ; 
Then  turned  the  broad  medallion  o'er 

And  stamped  the  sunset  side. 

Take  what  she  gives  ;  her  pine's  tall  stem, 

Her  elm  with  drooping  spray  ; 
She  wears  her  mountain  diadem 

Still  in  her  own  proud  way. 

Look  on  the  forest's  ancient  kings, 

The  hemlock's  towering  pride  ; 
Yon  trunk  had  twice  a  hundred  rings 

And  fell  before  it  died. 

Nor  think  that  Nature  saves  her  bloom 

And  slights  her  new  domain  ; 
For  us  she  wears  her  court  costume ; 

Look  on  its  courtly  train  ! 

The  lily  with  the  sprinkled  dots, 
Brands  of  the  noontide  beam  ; 

The  cardinal  and  the  blood-red  spots- 
Its  double  in  the  stream, 

As  if  some  wounded  eagle's  breast 

Slow  throbbing  o'er  the  plain, 
Had  left  its  airy  path  impressed 

In  drops  of  scarlet  rain. 

And  hark  !  and  hark  !  the  woodland  rings ; 
There  thrilled  the  thrush's  soul; 


104  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

And  look  !  and  look  !  those  lightning  wings 
The  fire -plumed  oriole  ! 

Above  the  hen-hawk  swims  and  swoops, 
Flung  from  the  bright  blue  sky ; 

Below,  the  robin  hops,  and  whoops 
His  little  Indian  cry. 

The  beetle  on  the  wave  has  brought 

A  pattern  all  his  own, 
Shaped  like  the  razor- breasted  yacht 

To  England  not  unknown. 

Beauty  runs  virgin  in  the  woods, 

Robed  in  her  rustic  green, 
And  oft  a  longing  thought  intrudes 

As  if  we  nought  have  seen. 

Her  every  fingers,  every  joint. 

Ringed  with  some  golden  line ; 
Poet  whom  Nature  did  anoint ! 

Had  our  young  home  been  thine. 

Yet  think  not  so;  old  England's  blood 

Runs  warm  in  English  veins, 
But  wafted  o'er  the  icy  flood 

Its  better  life  remains ; 

Our  children  know  each  wild-wood  smell. 

The  bayberry  and  the  fern  ; 
The  man  who  does  not  know  them  well, 

Is  all  too  old  to  learn. 

Be  patient ;  Love  has  long  been  grown ; 

Ambition  waxes  strong ; 
And  Heaven  is  asking  time  alone 

To  mould  a  child  of  song. 


THE  POET  AMONG   THE  HILLS.          105 

When  fate  draws  forth  the  mystic  lot 

The  chosen  bard  that  calls, 
No  eye  will  be  upon  the  spot 

Where  the  bright  token  falls. 

Perchance  the  blue  Atlantic's  brink, 

The  broad  Ohio's  gleam, 
Or  where  the  panther  stoops  to  drink 

Of  wild  Missouri's  stream  : 

Where  winter  clasps  with  glittering  ice 

Katahdin's  silver  chains, 
Or  Georgia's  flowery  paradise 

Unfolds  its  blushing  plains  : 

But  know  that  none  of  ancient  earth 

Can  bring  the  sacred  fire  ; 
He  drinks  the  wave  of  Western  birth 

That  rules  the  Western  lyre ! 


V. 
YOUNG   LADIES'    INSTITUTE   POEM. 

Character  of  the  Institute— Visited  by  John  Quincy 
Adams — Graduating  Exercises  in  1849 — Speech  by 
Ex-President  John  Tyler — Speech  and  Poem  by 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes. 

WE  have  already  spoken  of  the  Pittsfield, 
afterward  the  Maplewood,  Young  Ladies'  In 
stitute  in  connection  with  the  Berkshire  Jubilee 
dinner  which  was  given  upon  its  grounds.  It 
was  founded  in  1841  by  Rev.  Wellington  H. 
Tyler,  a  man  of  unlimited  energy  and  spirit  in 
his  undertaking.  In  1849  it  had  attained  an 
enviable  position  among  American  institutions 
for  the  higher  education  of  young  women,  and 
the  addresses,  poems,  and  like  exercises  at  its 
graduating  anniversaries  would  have  done  honor 
to  any  college  commencement  day.  We  are 
about  to  speak  of  these  exercises  in  1849,  when 
Dr.  Holmes  took  part  in  them ;  but  the  story  of 
that  occasion  will  derive  interest  from  the  re 
lation  of  an  incident  in  the  annals  of  the  insti 
tution  six  years  before. 

In  the  summer  of  1843  the  venerable  ex- 
106 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  107 

President  John  Quincy  Adams  made  a  tour 
through  the  principal  towns  of  Canada  and 
northern  New  York,  which  was  a  continual 
series  of  remarkable  ovations  in  which  all  classes 
and  all  parties  united.  On  his  way  home,  he 
was  formally  invited  to  Pittsfield,  where  the 
people  of  the  town  gave  him  a  brilliant  recep 
tion,  in  the  course  of  which  he  made  several 
characteristic  speeches.  At  the  public  dinner 
he  gave  this  toast:  "  The  hills  of  Berkshire;  the 
vales  of  Berkshire;  the  men  of  Berkshire;  but, 
above  all,  the  women  of  Berkshire." 

Then  the  omnibus  in  which  the  young  ladies 
were  accustomed  to  ride  conveyed  him,  with  the 
officers  of  the  day,  to  the  Institute  grounds, 
which  had  been  adorned  with  rich  evergreen 
arches  and  other  decorations.  Having  been 
appropriately  welcomed,  "he  addressed  the 
members  of  the  Institute  in  the  most  feeling 
and  happy  manner."  He  said  that  during  the 
past  month  he  had  met  with  many  kind  recep 
tions  and  tokens  of  regard  from  every  rank, 
party,  age,  and  profession,  not  only  in  a  neigh 
boring  State,  but  in  Canada.  Yet  in  all,  he  had 
witnessed  nothing  so  gratifying  and  interesting 
to  him  as  the  scene  now  before  him.  So  many 
blooming  countenances !  He  loved  to  look  upon 
them — he  should  be  happy  to  grasp  their  hands; 
and  their  voices,  too,  he  should  delight  to  hear; 
for  these,  he  doubted  not,  were  full  of  the 


io8  THE  POET  AMONG   THE  HILLS. 

sweetest  melody.  He  saw  before  him  those 
who  reminded  him  of  the  happiest  relations  of 
his  life — the  relations  of  wife,  mother,  sister, 
daughter,  and  grand-daughter.  It  was  these 
very  relations  that  were  impelling  him  this 
moment  on  his  way,  and  drawing  him  with  re 
sistless  power  to  his  home.  And,  if  he  seemed 
to  be  breaking  away  from  them,  it  was  only 
that  he  might  meet  a  wife,  a  daughter,  and  a 
grand-daughter  of  the  same  age  as  many  he  saw 
before  him. 

Then,  after  the  singing  of  a  hymn  and  warm 
hand-grasping,  the  venerable  statesman  and 
the  blooming  school-girls  parted;  but  with 
memories  of  the  day  that  could  never  fade. 

That  was  a  red-letter  day  for  the  Institute; 
and  another  like  it  came  six  years  later.  At 
the  graduating  exercises  of  1849,  the  report  of 
the  examining  committee  was  written  and  read 
by  Rev.  Dr.  Henry  Neill,  of  Lenox,  an  eloquent 
preacher  and  the  author  of  some  works  distin 
guished  for  elegant  scholarship,  and  the  address 
was  delivered  by  Rev.  Dr.  Brainerd,  of  New 
York. 

Among  the  guests  that  summer  at  the  Broad- 
hall  boarding-house  was  ex-President  John  Ty 
ler,  who,  whatever  politicians  thought,  seemed 
to  enjoy  keenly  the  relief  afforded  by  his  trans 
fer  from  a  not  excessively  agreeable  official  life 
at  Washington  to  one  of  ease  and  independence, 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE   HILLS.  109 

amid  Berkshire  scenery  in  the  company  of  his 
recently  wedded  wife:  a  woman  of  brilliant 
wit,  much  culture,  pleasing  manners,  and  withal 
evidently  devoted  to  her  equally  devoted  hus 
band,  who,  moreover,  did  not  lack  the  society  of 
friends  whose  friendship  was  to  be  prized, 
among  his  fellow-boarders  and  others  in  Berk 
shire,  including  Dr.  Holmes.  We  venture  to 
guess  that  there  were  pleasant  passages  of  wit 
between  the  great  humorist  and  Mrs.  Tyler, 
who  was  nothing  loath  to  such  encounters. 
President  Tyler  attended  the  anniversary  of  the 
Young  Ladies'  Institute,  and,  after  the  more 
formal  exercises,  made,  in  response  to  the  call 
of  the  principal,  a  most  genial  and  pleasing 
address,  from  which  we  quote  one  paragraph : 

"  Is  there  any  expression  in  language  that  so 
thrills  the  heart-strings  as  that  of  our  'mother'? 
She  who  gave  direction  to  our  early  ideas,  who 
first  caused  us  to  raise  our  little  hands  and  eyes 
in  prayer  to  the  throne  of  the  Most  High ;  and 
shall  her  daughters  be  denied  admission  to 
those  portals  which  open  to  a  knowledge  of  the 
deep  mysteries  of  nature  and  science?  I  am  most 
happy  to  know  that  those  portals  are  no  longer 
closed,  but  are  broadly  and  widely  opened." 

He  then  expressed  an  earnest  hope  for  the 
success  of  the  Institute  and  the  prosperity  of  its 
teachers  and  trustees. 

The  principal,  then,  with  a  few  compliment- 


no  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

ary  remarks,  called  upon  Dr.  Holmes,  who  re 
sponded  with  the  following  poem  and  prefatory 
remarks: 

"  If  it  were  any  other  place  than  Pittsfield,  and 
if  the  occasion  were  any  other  than  this  which 
has  called  us  together,  I  should  certainly  be 
unwilling  to  present  myself  before  this  audience 
after  the  exercises  to  which  we  have  just  lis 
tened.  But  the  place  has  so  many  claims  upon 
me,  connected  as  it  is  with  my  most  cherished 
recollections  and  my  brightest  hopes,  and  the 
occasion  is  one  so  capable  of  unsealing  the  lips 
of  the  dumb,  and  kindling  light  in  the  eyes  of 
the  blind,  that  I  cannot  refuse  to  follow7  my  im 
pulse  against  my  judgment.  After  the  inter 
esting  address  which  you  have  heard,  the  full 
and  most  satisfactory  report  of  the  committee, 
and  the  eloquent  remarks  of  our  distinguished 
visitor,  it  would  ill  become  me  to  occupy  your 
time  with  any  attempts  at  expatiation  on  those 
subjects  which  naturally  present  themselves, 
but  which  have  already  been  so  well  treated  and 
so  vividly  illustrated.  Let  me  rather,  instead 
of  toiling  through  an  unnecessary  series  of 
phrases,  and  bowing  myself  out  in  a  finished 
peroration,  have  recourse  to  an  artifice  under 
cover  of  which  I  have  sometimes  retreated  from 
dangerous  positions,  like  that  which  I  now 
occupy. 

"You  have  heard  some  allusions  made  to  the 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  in 

strains  of  a  music-box,  which,  if  it  is  wound  up, 
plays  out  its  single  tune,  and  then  subsides  into 
mute  companionship.  There  is  another  kind 
of  music,  which,  as  some  think,  is  occasionally 
not  disagreeable ;  and  of  which  I  mean  to  give 
you  a  most  brief  and  compendious  specimen. 
You  must  not  think  you  are  to  have  a  symphony 
on  the  organ  or  a  sonata  from  the  piano;  one 
little  tinkling  tune  is  all  that  will  be  played  to 
you,  and  then  the  box  will  shut  up,  and  you  are 
to  say  no  more  about  it. 

"I  will  read  you  a  few  lines  from  a  scrap  of 
paper  which,  as  you  see,  I  have  kept  artfully 
concealed  about  my  person. 

A  VISION  OF  LIFE. 

The  well-known  weakness  of  the  rhyming  race 
Is  to  be  ready  in  and  out  of  place  ; 
No  bashful  glow,  no  timid  begging  off, 
No  sudden  hoarseness,  no  discordant  cough 
(Those  coy  excuses  which  your  singers  plead, 
When  faintly  uttering  :  "No,  I  can't,  indeed") 
Impedes  your  rhymester  in  his  prompt  career. 
Give  him  but  hint ;  and  won' t  the  muse  appear? 

So,  without  blushing,  when  they  asked,  I  came— 

I  whom  the  plough-share,  not  the  quill,  should  claim — 

The  rural  nymphs  that  on  my  labors  smile 

May  mend  my  fence,  but  cannot  mend  my  style. 

The  winged  horse  disdains  my  steady  team, 

And  teeming  fancy  must  forget  to  dream. 

I  harrow  fields  and  not  the  hearts  of  men  ; 

Pigs,  and  not  poems,  claim  my  humble  pen. 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

And  thus  to  enter  on  so  new  a  stage, 
With  the  fair  critics  of  this  captious  age 
Might  lead  a  sceptic  to  the  rude  surmise 
That  cits,  turned  rustics,  are  not  overwise  ; 
Or  the  bright  verdure  of  the  pastoral  scene 
Had  changed  my  hue,  and  made  me  very  green. 

A  few  brief  words  that,  fading  as  they  fall, 
Like  the  green  garlands  of  a  festal  hall, 
May  lend  one  glow,  one  breath  of  fragrance  pour, 
Ere  swept  ungathered  from  the  silent  floor. 
Such  is  my  offering  for  your  festal  day ; 
These  sprigs  of  rhyme  ;  this  metrical  boquet. 

O,  my  sweet  sisters — let  me  steal  the  name 
Nearest  to  love  and  most  remote  from  blame- 
How  brief  an  hour  of  fellowship  ensures 
The  heart's  best  homage  at  a  shrine  like  yours. 
As  o'er  your  band  our  kindling  glances  fall, 
It  seems  a  life-time  since  I've  known  you  all ! 
Yet  in  each  face  where  youthful  graces  blend 
Our  partial  memory  still  revives  a  friend ; 
The  forms  once  loved,  the  features  once  adored, 
In  her  new  picture  nature  has  restored. 

Those  golden  ringlets,  rippling  as  they  flow, 
We  wreathed  with  blossoms  many  years  ago. 
Seasons  have  wasted  ;  but,  remembered  yet, 
There  gleams  the  lily  through  those  braids  of  jet. 
Cheeks  that  have  faded  worn  by  slow  decay 
Have  caught  new  blushes  from  the  morning's  ray. 
That  simple  ribbon,  crossed  upon  the  breast, 
Wakes  a  poor  heart  that  sobbed  itself  to  rest ; 
Aye,  thus  she  wore  it ;  tell  me  not  she  died, 
With  that  fair  phantom  floating  by  my  side, 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  113 

'Tis  as  of  old  :  why  ask  the  vision's  name? 
All,  to  the  white  robe's  folding,  is  the  same ; 
And  there,  unconscious  of  a  hundred  snows, 
On  that  white  bosom  burns  the  self-same  rose. 

Oh,  dear  illusion,  how  thy  magic  power 
Works  with  two  charms— a  maiden  and  a  flower ! 
Then  blame  me  not  if,  lost  in  memory's  dream, 
I  cheat  your  hopes  of  some  expansive  theme. 

When  the  pale  star-light  fills  the  evening  dim, 

A  misty  mantle  folds  our  river's  brim. 

In  those  white  wreaths,  how  oft  the  wanderer  sees 

Half  real  shapes,  the  playthings  of  the  breeze. 

While  every  image  in  the  darkening  tide 

Fades  from  its  breast,  unformed  and  undescribed. 

Thus,  while  I  stand  among  your  starry  train, 

My  gathering  fancies  turn  to  mist  again. 

O'er  time's  dark  wave  aerial  shadows  play, 

But  all  the  living  landscape  melts  away. 


VI. 

THE   PLOUGHMAN. 

Genesis  of  the  Berkshire  Agricultural  Society— Elkanah 
Watson — Major  Thomas  Melville — John  Quincy 
Adams  upon  Agricultural  Oratory — The  Pictur 
esque  First  Cattle  Show — How  Women  Received 
Their  Premiums — About  Ploughing  Matches — Cattle 
Shows  of  1849  and  1851 — Dr.  Holmes'  Ploughing 
Match  Report— His  Poem,  The  Ploughman. 

THE  Agricultural  Societies,  of  which  almost 
every  county  in  the  Union  and  in  Canada 
boasts  at  least  one,  still,  as  of  old,  furnish  their 
peoples,  in  their  autumnal  cattle-shows  and 
fairs,  with  gala  days  strikingly  unlike  any 
others.  Most  of  them  retain  in  some  good  de 
gree  the  quaint  provincial  features  which  gave 
them  irresistible  attractions  for  country  folk,  and 
a  singular  charm  for  those  familiar  with  the 
wide  world's  great  spectacular  festivals.  In 
spite  of  "  improvements" — which,  whether  they 
improve  or  not,  do  certainly  innovate — the  fan 
dangos,  the  merry-go-rounds,  the  rude  side 
shows,  the  ruder  oyster  booths,  the  sweet-cider 
barrels,  and  all  that  used  to  delight  what  "Josh 
114 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.          115 

Billings,"  and  other  county-wag's  before  him, 
were  wont  to  call  "  thekritter-look-krowd,"  still 
hold  their  own  pretty  well.  Still,  every  fall, 
more  or  less  competent  orators  dilate  upon  the 
historic,  social,  and  economical  aspects  of  the 
organizations  they  address,  with  more  or  less 
knowledge  of  what  they  are  talking  about. 
The  practice  of  selecting  agricultural  orators 
for  other  reasons  than  their  knowledge  of  agri 
culture  has  come  down  to  us  from  the  good  old 
times.  People,  as  a  mass,  always  did,  and 
always  will,  run  to  see  and  hear  live  governors, 
and  live  lions  of  any  species.  They  draw. 
For  draft  purposes  they  easily  take  the  first  cat 
tle-show  premiums  even  over  elephants.  John 
Quincy  Adams,  however,  did  not  favor  their  use. 
In  a  speech  at  Pittsfield,  he  mentioned  that  he 
had  received  several  invitations  to  address  ag 
ricultural  societies,  one  of  them  from  the  "  Old 
Berkshire,"  asking  him  to  speak  at  its  coming 
anniversary.  "  But, "  said  he,  "  think  of  my  com 
ing  to  Berkshire  to  teach  agriculture!  I  am  no 
farmer:  why,  in  all  my  life,  I  have  not  been  at 
home  long  enough  to  become  a  proficient  in 
it,  and  I  believe  with  "Poor  Richard,"  that 

"'He  who  by  the  plough  would  thrive 
Himself  must  either  hold  or  drive. '" 

But  then  Mr.  Adams  would  have  been  very 
likely    to    disapprove    many    things    now    as 


n6  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

strongly  intrenched  in  popular  favor  as  the 
Leo-Hunter  craze  of  the  agricultural  societies 
is.  And  the  societies  continue  to  flourish  in 
spite  of  all  fault-finding  critics.  Something, 
indeed,  of  the  picturesque  and  poetic  coloring 
that  gave  beauty  to  the  quaintness  of  their 
autumnal  gatherings  has  faded  since  the  times 
when  William  Cullen  Bryant  and  Oliver  Wen 
dell  Holmes  were  among  their  poets  laureate; 
but  not  all.  They  are  not  yet  entirely  untinted 
of  their  old  fascinating  hues.  This  is  especially 
true  of  the  "  Ancient  and  Honorable"  Berkshire 
Agricultural  Society — the  parent  of  them  all. 
The  dominant  peculiarities,  which  this  institu 
tion  transmitted  to  all  its  widespread  progeny, 
were  the  fruit  of  much  culture  and  knowledge 
of  the  world,  gained  partly  in  American  cities, 
but  much  more  largely  in  Europe;  and  applied 
to  a  secluded  but  intelligent  and  ambitious 
community.  Elkanah  Watson,  the  founder  of 
the  society,  had  opportunities  in  his  youth  to 
closely  observe  men  and  affairs  during  the 
Revolution,  and  to  acquire  something  of  its 
spirit;  but,  coming  of  age  in  1779,  he  went  to 
France,  where  he  was  engaged  until  1784  in 
mercantile  business  that  called  for  extensive 
travel  in  that  country,  as  well  as  in  Holland, 
Belgium,  and  Great  Britain.  Returning  to 
America,  he  made  his  home  in  Albany,  where, 
associated  with  several  patriotic  and  public- 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  117 

spirited  statesmen  in  plans  for  the  good  of  the 
country,  he  became  particularly  interested  in 
their  efforts,  and  those  of  the  New  York  State 
Agricultural  Society,  for  the  improvement  of 
American  wools, — which  sadly  needed  improve 
ment — by  the  importation  of  the  best  Span 
ish  breeds  of  sheep,  purchased  in  the  mar 
kets  thrown  open  by  the  wars  of  Napoleon.  In 
1807,  he  removed  to  Pittsfield,  succeeding 
Henry  Van  Schaack  on  the  Broadhall  estate. 
Here  he  remembered  what  he  had  seen  of  festal 
and  oratorical  agricultural  fairs  in  France,  and 
of  the  less  showy  solid  cattle-shows  of  England; 
and  also  that  the  New  York  State  Society  had 
recommended  county  societies  and  shows.  These 
memories,  together  with  the  favorable  position 
he  occupied  at  Pittsfield,  naturally  inspired  him 
with  the  idea  which  culminated  four  years  later 
— after  a  world  of  effort  on  his  part — in  the  es 
tablishment  of  the  Berkshire  Society  for  the  Pro 
motion  of  Agriculture  and  Manufactures.  In 
1814  he  was  succeeded  in  its  presidency  by  Maj. 
Thomas  Melville,  who,  when  Mr.  Watson  re 
turned  to  Albany  in  1816,  also  succeeded  him 
in  the  Broadhall  property.  He  was  an  uncle  of 
Herman  Melville  and  son  of  the  Maj.  Thomas 
Melville  who  was  one  of  the  Boston  Tea-Party 
of  1773,  and,  in  his  extreme  old  age,  became 
the  original  of  Dr.  Holmes'  "  Last  Leaf."  The 
younger  Major  Melville  passed  much  of  his 


n8  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

early  life  in  France,  where  he  had  an  interest 
ing  and  romantic  experience,  and  married  a 
lady  of  family.  He  returned  in  season  to  be 
made  commandant,  with  the  rank  of  major,  of 
the  Pittsfield  cantonment,  and  commissioner 
for  the  purchase  of  army  supplies,  a  position 
which  enabled  him  to  speedily  learn  much  of 
Berkshire  farmers  and  their  husbandry. 

This  happy  combination,  in  the  first  two  pres 
idents  of  the  Agricultural  Society,  of  practical 
local  knowledge,  with  tastes  cultivated  and 
thoughts  quickened  by  energetic  lives  and  wide 
observation  abroad,  all  stimulated  by  patriotism 
enhanced  by  the  war,  together  with  Mr.  Wat 
son's  inventive  imagination  and  liberal  purse, 
had  its  natural  fruit  in  a  community  ordinarily 
distinguished  for  plain  common  sense  and 
homely  every-day  labors;  but  which  many  in 
stances  show  to  have  been  extremely  susceptible 
of  incitement  to  enthusiasm  when  its  love  of 
country  was  properly  appealed  to.  And  a  burn 
ing  desire  to  free  America  from  dependence 
upon  British  looms  was  a  conspicuous,  and  in 
deed  the  primal,  motive  of  the  founders  of  the 
Berkshire  Society  for  the  promotion  of  agricul 
ture  and  manufactures. 

Pre-existing  associations  had  exerted  them 
selves  zealously  and  accomplished  something  in 
this  direction;  but  their  members  were,  for  the 
most  part,  men  actively  and  deeply  engaged  in 


THE   POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  119 

business,  politics,  or  society.  They  held  their 
meetings  in  metropolitan  centers  and  worked, 
or  sought  to  work,  rather  upon  than  among  and 
with  the  country  farmers.  Thus  they  failed 
to  obtain  any  strong  hold  upon  the  popular 
heart,  and  accomplished  comparatively  little  in 
elevating  farmers  as  a  class  intellectually,  so 
cially,  or  even  in  capacity  for  their  own  every 
day  calling.  They  created  no  great  holiday 
for  the  people,  no  fellowship  in  the  farmer's 
craft;  and  thus  they  missed  the  most  potent 
means  for  raising  American  husbandry  to  a 
higher  plane.  "They  depended,"  said  Mr. 
Watson,  "  too  much  upon  type,  and  did  not  ad 
dress  the  interest  and  the  sentiment  of  the 
people."  Their  approaches  were  too  direct. 
They  sought  to  influence  their  humbler  fellows 
almost  solely  through  the  cold  medium  of  the 
press;  neglecting  appeals  to  the  imagination, 
to  social  sentiment,  and  to  that  fondness  for 
pageantry  which  characterized  the  times.  All 
this  the  founders  of  the  Berkshire  Society  re 
versed;  so  molding  it  that  in  a  few  years  its 
example  inaugurated  a  new  era  in  American 
agricultural  life.  This  it  effected  through  its 
annual  cattle-shows  and  fairs. 

The  cattle-show,  which  was  the  germ  of  a 
class  that  has  so  increased  and  multiplied  that 
its  scions  now  flourish  in  every  corner  of  the 
land,  was  held,  under  a  call  from  twenty-six  in- 


120  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

fluential  Berkshire  farmers,  in  1810,  around  the 
tall  old  elm  which  then  stood  in  solitary  gran 
deur  on  the  village  green  that  is  now  known  as 
the  Pittsfield  Park.  Although  this  show  was 
little  more  than  a  display  of  cattle  and  sheep, 
followed  by  an  address  from  Mr.  Watson,  it  ex 
cited  a  wide  interest,  particularly  in  New  Eng 
land  and  New  York.  At  home  it  created  the 
Berkshire  Agricultural  Society,  under  whose 
auspices  and  control  the  second  show  and  fair 
was  held  on  the  last  Tuesday  and  Wednesday 
of  September,  1811.  This  is  the  occasion  to 
which  Pittsfield  traditions  revert  with  unlimited 
pride ;  although  some  of  the  features  of  the 
show  afterward  the  most  popular  were  not  yet 
introduced. 

Two  of  Berkshire's  most  glorious  September 
days  blessed  the  young  festival  with  an  atmos 
phere  at  once  genial  and  bracing.  An  un 
clouded  but  not  torrid  sun,  and  foliage  not  yet 
tinged  with  any  hectic  flush ;  all  that  Nature's 
ministers  can  offer  in  provision  for  the  most 
unalloyed  enjoyment  of  whatever  of  pleasure  or 
interest  man  may  prepare  for  enjoyment.  The 
streets  and  Park  square  early  took  on  the  lively 
aspect  that  subsequent  cattle-shows  made  famil 
iar.  People  from  the  country  round  about,  in 
all  sorts  of  vehicles  from  a  "one-horse  shay"  to 
a  farm-wagon,  began,  before  the  rising  of  the 
sun,  to  pour  into  town,  mixed  with  herds  of  cat- 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.          121 

tie,  sheep  in  wagons  or  in  flocks,  a  few  swine, 
and  some  mechanical  inventions.  Immediately 
around  the  tall  elm,  there  was  an  inclosure  for 
the  live-stock  entered  for  premium.  The  re 
maining  space  and  the  neighboring  streets  were 
soon  thronged  with  an  excited,  expectant  crowd : 
"many  of  them  females," — although  the  fea 
tures  which  afterward  made  the  festival  of  spe 
cial  interest  to  them  were  wanting.  Booths  for 
the  sale  of  refreshments  and  Yankee  notions 
had  sprung  up  like  mushrooms,  after  the  fash 
ion  of  the  then  familiar  militia  muster-fields. 
The  committee  had  announced  that  "  innocent 
amusements  would  be  permitted,"  and  enter 
prising  genius  provided  a  plenty.  Chief  among 
them  was  the  fandango,  or,  as  they  styled  it, 
the  "aerial  phaeton,"  whose  dizzy  pleasures 
have  never  since  that  day  failed  the  lads  and 
lasses  who  resort  to  cattle-shows.  Then  "  the 
first  elephant  ever  brought  to  America"  gave 
the  country  folk  their  first  chance  to  see  "  that 
remarkable  creature,"  except  in  a  cant  meta 
phorical  sense. 

The  procedings  and  pageants  of  the  occasion 
were  all  unique  and  "telling;"  but  the  proces 
sion  was  its  crowning  glory.  Mr.  Watson,  in 
his  diary,  calls  it  "splendid,  novel,  and  impos 
ing  beyond  anything  of  the  kind  ever  before 
exhibited  in  America."  First  came  the  Pitts- 
field  band,  whose  music  is  described  as  inspirit- 


122  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

ing  and  creditable.  Then  followed  sixty  yoke 
of  prime  oxen,  the  oxen  being  driven  and  the 
plow  held  by  the  two  oldest  farmers  in  the 
town,  whose  plowing  of  its  soil  dated  back  to  a 
time  when  it  could  only  be  done  side  by  side 
with  a  musket,  and  under  the  near  protection 
of  log  forts  which  these  same  old  farmers  had 
themselves  built.  Next  came  a  broad  platform 
drawn  by  oxen,  bearing  a  broadcloth-hand- 
loom  with  a  flying  shuttle  and  a  spinning- 
jenny  of  forty  spindles,  both  machines  kept  in 
operation  by  skillful  workmen;  one  of  them, 
a  remarkably  fine-looking  Englishman,  wearing 
the  costume  of  Dr.  Holmes'  "  Last  Leaf,"  which 
had  even  then  almost  passed  from  common 
wear.  In  this  case  it  was  entirely  black,  but 
decorated  with  an  abundance  of  bright-colored 
ribbons  or  "favors."  The  next  broad  platform 
was  drawn  by  horses — a  prophecy  of  the  coming 
change  in  rural  motive  power.  It  was  in  the 
nature  of  a  triumphal  car  for  what  Berkshire 
had  already  achieved  in  manufactures;  exhibit 
ing  rolls  of  broadcloth,  bolts  of  sail-duck,  hand 
some  rose-blankets,  leather,  muskets,  drums, 
anchors,  and  tall  clocks  like  that  which  then 
stood  in  the  hall  stairway  of  the  Gold  mansion 
awaiting  the  coming  of  fame.  The  last  divi 
sion  was  composed  of  the  officers  and  members 
of  the  society,  their  hats  decorated  with  heads 
of  wheat,  and  carrying  a  banner  with  a  plow 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.          123 

on  one  side  and  a  sheaf  of  wheat  on  the  re 
verse. 

This  display  made  an  impression  upon  the 
people  of  the  county  which  has  never  been 
effaced,  but  has  been  handed  down  to  this  day 
in  the  traditions  of  its  old  families  so  vividly 
that  to  have  heard  it  in  youth  at  the  family  fire 
side  answers  very  well  for  a  patent  of  county 
rank.  The  report  of  this  cattle-show  went  far 
and  wide,  like  that  of  the  Berkshire  Jubilee,  but 
it  had  far  more  practical  and  permanent  results ; 
which  were  increased  as  new  attractions  were 
added  to  the  programme  of  the  festival.  The  first 
of  these  additions  was  effected  by  inducing  the 
women  of  the  county  to  take  a  personal  part  in 
the  show.  Mr.  Watson  had  to  exert  all  his 
ingenuity,  and  call  in  the  aid  of  his  wife,  to 
overcome  their  native  shy  timidity;  but  he 
succeeded,  and  their  display  of  household  manu 
factures,  fancy  articles,  dairy  products,  and  the 
like,  always  thronged  the  halls  in  which  they 
were  exhibited  with  admiring  crowds.  The 
quilt  that  grandmother  sent  to  the  show  in  her 
young  life  and  the  silver  bowl  that  grand 
father's  choice  oxen  won  him  are  precious  rel 
ics  in  old  Berkshire  families  wherever  time 
may  have  scattered  them.  A  Virginian  letter- 
writer,  in  1822,  thus  described  the  scene  when 
the  premiums  awarded  to  women  were  de 
livered. 


124  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

"  The  president  from  the  pulpit,  immediately 
after  the  address,  announced:  'As  premiums 
are  proclaimed  for  females  they  will  please  rise 
in  their  places,  and  the  chief  marshal  will  de 
liver  to  each  her  premium  and  certificate  of 
honorable  testimony. '  The  instant  the  name 
of  the  successful  candidate  was  announced,  the 
eyes  of  an  exhilarated  audience  were  flying  in 
every  direction,  impelled  by  the  strongest  curi 
osity  to  see  the  fortunate  blushing  female,  with 
downcast  eyes,  raising  both  her  hands,  as  the 
marshal  approached;  with  one  to  receive  her 
premium,  with  the  other  her  certificate.  The 
effect  cannot  be  described.  It  must  be  seen  to 
be  realized." 

Strangely  enough,  the  plowing  match  was 
not  introduced  until  1818,  when  it  at  once  be 
came  the  most  exhilarating  feature  of  the  festi 
val  ;  receiving,  as  a  competitive  exhibition,  the 
attention,  and  exciting  the  interest  which  have 
since,  in  a  very  large  degree,  been  usurped  by 
the  then  unknown  "agricultural  horse-trot;"  as 
some  think,  not  greatly  to  the  advantage  of 
agriculture.  In  the  good  old  plowing-match 
times,  at  an  appointed  hour,  the  trial  took  place 
in  a  previously  announced  level  and  convenient 
field;  to  which  the  whole  "  kritter-look-krowd" 
repaired,  eager  with  the  liveliest  anticipations. 
And  they  were  never  disappointed  ;  for  the  con 
tests  were  invariably  precisely  like  that  which 


THE   POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  125 

Dr.  Holmes  has  pictured  to  the  life  in  his  poem 
of  "  The  Ploughman ;"  a  piece  of  word-painting 
as  accurate  as  it  is  vivid. 

At  the  first  plowing  match,  the  first  premium 
was  taken  by  Major  Melville's  ploughman ;  time, 
thirty-nine  minutes.  His  competitors  declared 
that  his  success  was  due  to  a  superior  iron  plow 
which  the  major  had  just  received  from  Boston. 
The  curious  in  such  matters  may  still  see  it 
in  the  historical  cabinet  of  the  Berkshire  Athe 
naeum,  and  judge  its  merits  for  themselves.  It 
looks  as  though  good  work  might  be  done  with 
it  rapidly. 

Dr.  Holmes  read  his  admirable  poem,  "  The 
Ploughman,"  in  1849.  In  1852  a  description  of 
the  cattle-show  of  1851  was  published,  from 
which  we  take  a  couple  of  descriptive  para 
graphs. 

"  The  festival  of  all  festivals,  the  two  days  for 
which,  in  the  opinion  of  our  rural  population, 
all  other  days  in  the  round  year  were  made,  are 
those  of  the  cattle-show  and  fair  of  the  County 
Agricultural  Society.  Thanksgiving's  grateful 
rest  comes  after.  This  is  the  shining  goal  of 
the  year's  race.  Dreaming  of  a  silver  cup,  or 
at  least  "honorable  mention,"  the  farmer  tills 
his  soil,  tends  his  flocks  and  herds,  and  is  care 
ful  for  many  things  in  sunshine  and  storm. 
For  the  same  momentous  occasion  the  busy 
fingers  of  his  wife  and  daughters  are  plied, 


126  THE   POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

while  in  the  dairy,  cleanliest  receptacles  are 
filled  with  balls  of  golden-hued  butter  and 
cylinders  of  odorous  cheese.  In  chambers, 
too,  quaintly  variegated  needleworks  bud  and 
blossom,  and  snowy  webs  issue  from  the  antique 
loom. 

Nor  do  the  taper  fingers  of  more  dainty  ladies 
disdain  to  contend  for  the  silver  spoons;  while 
retired  gentlemen  of  fortune  take  a  notable 
pride  in  the  display  of  luscious  fruits  and  mam 
moth  vegetables. 

The  village  beaux  prize  the  day  as  an  occa 
sion  for  the  display  of  superior  gallantry;  and 
the  village  magnates  aspire  to  the  offices  in  the 
gift  of  the  society  as  no  small  distinctions  in 
themselves,  and  possibly — pardon  the  suspicion 
— as  stepping-stones  to  more  substantial  honors. 
Few  among  us  but  are  at  least  amateurs  in  agri 
culture  ;  so  that  when  the  great  festival  of  Ceres 
approaches,  our  mountain  Microcosmos  is  all 
agog  with  excitement.  The  country  around  is 
in  a  ferment  of  preparation ;  now  is  the  harvest 
of  the  village  tailors;  now  the  paraphernalia  of 
the  village  belles  is  cunningly  renovated  for  con 
quest.  ...  On  the  bright  and  beautiful  morn 
ing  of  the  second  day  of  the  fair,  we  again 
sallied  forth  in  quest  of  adventure.  The  streets 
were  thronged  with  all  sorts  of  people,  seem 
ingly  like  ourselves,  with  no  very  definite  notion 
of  what  they  were  after : 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  127 

"Like  a  flock  of  sheep, 
Not  knowing  and  not  caring  whither 
They  come  or  go— so  that  they  fool  together." 

•  My  brain  is  mazed  with  the  memory  of  that 
motley  crowd.  The  delegate  from  Peacham, 
with  gingerbread  under  one  arm  and  "  um- 
brell"  tinder  the  other,  jostled  the  gloved  and 
caned  exquisite  from  Broadway;  and  the  trav 
eler  who  could  compare  this  with  the  great 
fairs  of  Europe  was  favored  with  the  opinion  of 
the  youth  whose  eyes  had  hardly  peeped  over 
the  Berkshire  Hills — and  it  may  be  was  wise 
enough  to  learn  something  from  it.  Here  and 
there,  men  whose  names  were  known  the  world 
over  in  literature  or  politics  went  about — moral 
izing,  perhaps;  or,  much  more  likely,  watching 
that  most  animating  portion  of  the  scene: 

"The  lassies  with  sly  eyes, 

And  the  smile  settling  in  their  sun-flecked  cheeks. 
Like  bloom  upon  the  mellow  apricot." 

One  of  these  famous  people  was  Dr.  Holmes, 
whom  the  writer  then  first  saw,  as  he  was  lead 
ing  from  booth  to  booth,  and  from  side-show  to 
side-show,  a  little  boy — very  likely,  the  since 
gallant  captain  and  learned  judge.  At  the  cat 
tle-show,  two  years  before  this,  Dr.  Holmes 
was  chairman  of  the  committee  on  the  plow- 
ing-match,  being  probably  induced  to  accept 
that  position,  and  write  the  poem  to  which  it 


128  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

led,  by  his  personal  friendship  for  Hon.  Ensign 
H.  Kellogg,  who  was  secretary  and  actuary  of 
the  society. 

The  oral  exercises  of  the  festival  were  held  in 
the  old  church  of  1791,  in  which  at  two  cattle- 
shows,  years  before,  Bryant  had  listened  to  the 
singing  of  odes  written  for  them  by  himself ; 
and  which  had  been  the  theater  of  many  mem 
orable  scenes  and  events.  The  cattle-show  ex 
ercises  always  filled  it  to  its  full  capacity  with 
such  an  audience  as  may  be  imagined  from 
what  has  been  said.  It  could  not  be  more  than 
filled  on  this  occasion,  but  there  was  a  much 
larger  sprinkling  than  usual  of  the  more  culti 
vated  class ;  a  hint  of  the  coming  treat  having 
passed  from  mouth  to  mouth  among  them. 
When  the  report  of  the  plowing-match  com 
mittee  was  called  for,  there  was  a  storm  of 
applause;  Dr.  Holmes'  Jubilee  poem  being  still 
fresh  in  the  minds  of  the  people.  After  grace- 
full}''  recognizing  it  by  a  bow,  he  mounted  half 
way  up  the  old-fashioned  high  pulpit  stairs  and, 
turning  to  the  audience,  read  his  report;  of 
which  we  give  below  what  is  of  permanent  in 
terest,  and  the  poem  it  introduces;  a  poem 
which  all  critics  now  class  as  one  of  the  finest 
georgics  in  the  whole  range  of  modern  poetry; 
and  which  some  of  the  best  hold  to  be  without 
a  rival. 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.          129 


REPORT. 

The  committee  on  the  plowing-match  are 
fully  sensible  of  the  dignity  and  importance  of 
the  office  entrusted  to  their  judgment.  To  de 
cide  upon  the  comparative  merits  of  so  many 
excellent  specimens  of  agricultural  art  is  a  most 
delicate,  responsible,  and  honorable  duty. 

The  plough  is  a  very  ancient  implement.  It 
is  written  in  the  English  language  p-1-o-u-g-h, 
and,  by  the  association  of  free  and  independent 
spellers,  p-l-o-w.  It  may  be  remarked  that  the 
same  gentlemen  can,  by  a  similar  process,  turn 
their  coughs  into  cows;  which  would  be  the 
cheapest  mode  of  raising  live  stock,  although  it 
is  to  be  feared  that  they  (referring  to  the  cows) 
would  prove  but  low-bred  animals.  Some  have 
derived  the  English  word  plough  from  the 
Greek  ploutos,  the  wealth  which  comes  from  the 
former  suggesting  its  resemblance  to  the  latter. 
But  such  resemblances  between  different  lan 
guages  may  be  carried  too  far:  as  for  example, 
if  a  man  should  trace  the  name  of  the  Altamaha 
to  the  circumstance  that  the  first  settlers  were 
all  tomahawked  on  the  margin  of  that  river. 

Time  and  experience  have  sanctioned  the 
custom  of  putting  only  plain,  practical  men 
upon  this  committee.  Were  it  not  so,  the  most 
awkward  blunders  would  be  constantly  occur- 


9 


130  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

ring.  The  inhabitants  of  our  cities,  who  visit 
the  country  during  the  fine  season,  would  find 
themselves  quite  at  a  loss  if  an  overstrained 
politeness  should  place  them  in  this  position. 
Imagine  a  trader,  or  a  professional  man,  from 
the  capital  of  the  State,  unexpectedly  called 
upon  to  act  in  rural  matters.  Plough-shares  are 
to  him  shares  that  pay  no  dividends.  A  coulter, 
he  supposes,  has  something  to  do  with  a  horse. 
His  notions  of  stock  were  obtained  in  Faneuil 
Hall  market,  where  the  cattle  looked  funnily 
enough,  to  be  sure,  compared  with  the  living 
originals.  He  knows,  it  is  true,  that  there  is  a 
difference  in  cattle,  and  would  tell  you  that  he 
prefers  the  sirloin  breed.  His  children  are 
equally  unenlightened ;  they  know  no  more  of 
the  poultry-yard  than  what  they  have  learned 
by  having  the  chicken-pox,  and  playing  on  a 
Turkey  carpet.  Their  small  knowledge  of 
wool-growing  is  lam(b)entable. 

The  history  of  one  of  these  summer-visitors 
shows  how  imperfect  is  his  rural  education. 
He  no  sooner  establishes  himself  in  the  country 
than  he  begins  a  series  of  experiments.  He 
tries  to  drain  a  marsh,  but  only  succeeds  in 
draining  his  own  pockets.  He  offers  to  pay  for 
carting  off  a  compost  heap ;  but  is  informed  that 
it  consists  of  corn  and  potatoes  in  an  unfinished 
state.  He  sows  abundantly,  but  reaps  little  or 
nothing,  except  with  the  implement  which  he 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.          131 

uses  in  shaving;  a  process  which  is  frequently 
performed  for  him  by  other  people,  though  he 
pays  no  barber's  bill.  He  builds  a  wire-fence 
and  paints  it  green,  so  that  nobody  can  see  it. 
But  he  forgets  to  order  a  pair  of  spectacles 
apiece  for  his  cows,  who,  taking  offense  at  some- 
thing  else,  take  his  fence  in  addition,  and  make 
an  invisible  one  of  it  sure  enough.  And,  finally, 
having  bought  a  machine  to  chop  fodder,  which 
chops  off  a  good  slice  of  his  dividends,  and  two 
or  three  children's  fingers,  he  concludes  that, 
instead  of  cutting  feed,  he  will  cut  farming ; 
and  so  sells  out  to  one  of  those  plain,  practical 
farmers,  such  as  you  have  honored  by  placing 
them  on  your  committee ;  whose  pockets  are  not 
so  full  when  he  starts,  but  have  fewer  holes  and 
not  so  many  fingers  in  them. 

It  must  have  been  one  of  these  practical  men 
whose  love  of  his  pursuits  led  him  to  send  in  to 
the  committee  the  following  lines,  which  it  is 
hoped  will  be  accepted  as  a  grateful  tribute  to 
the  noble  art  whose  successful  champions  are 
now  to  be  named  and  rewarded. 

Dr.  Holmes  then  read  "  The  Ploughman," 

THE  PLOUGHMAN. 

Clear  the  brown  path  to  meet  his  coulter's  gleam  ! 
Lo  !  on  he  comes  behind  his  smoking  team, 
With  toil's  bright  dew-drops  on  his  sunburnt  brow, 
The  lord  of  earth,  the  hero  of  the  plough  ! 


132  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

First  in  the  field  before  the  reddening  sun, 

Last  in  the  shadows  when  the  day  is  done, 

Line  after  line,  along  the  bursting  sod, 

Marks  the  broad  acres  where  his  feet  have  trod ; 

Still  where  he  treads,  the  stubborn  clods  divide,     . 

The  smooth,  fresh  furrow  opens  deep  and  wide; 

Matted  and  dense  the  tangled  turf  upheaves, 

Mellow  and  dark  the  ridgy  cornfield  cleaves ; 

Up  the  steep  hillside,  where  the  laboring  train 

Slants  the  long  track  that  scores  the  level  plain  ; 

Through  the  moist  valley,  clogged  with  oozing  clay, 

The  patient  convoy  breaks  its  destined  way  ; 

At  every  turn  the  loosening  chains  resound, 

The  swinging  ploughshare  circles  glistening  round, 

Till  the  wide  field  one  billowy  waste  appears 

And  wearied  hands  unbind  the  panting  steers. 

These  are  the  hands  whose  sturdy  labor  brings 
The  peasant's  food,  the  golden  pomp  of  kings; 
This  is  the  page  whose  letters  shall  be  seen 
Changed  by  the  sun  to  words  of  living  green ; 
This  is  the  scholar,  whose  immortal  pen 
Spells  the  first  lesson  hunger  taught  to  men  ; 
These  are  the  lines,  oh,  Heaven-commanded  toil, 
That  fill  thy  deed— thy  charter  of  the  soil ! 

O,  gracious  Mother,  whose  benignant  breast 
Wakes  us  to  life,  and  lulls  us  all  to  rest, 
How  sweet  thy  features,  kind  to  every  clime, 
Mock  with  their  smile  the  wrinkled  front  of  time! 
We  stain  thy  flowers, — they  blossom  o'er  the  dead ; 
We  rend  thy  bosom,  and  it  gives  us  bread  ; 
O'er  the  red  field  that  trampling  strife  has  torn, 
Waves  the  green  plumage  of  thy  tasselled  corn ; 
Our  maddening  conflicts  scar  thy  fairest  plain, 
Still  thy  soft  answer  is  the  growing  grain. 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  133 

Yet,  O  our  Mother,  while  uncounted  charms 
Round  the  fresh  clasp  of  thine  embracing  arms, 
Let  not  our  virtues  in  thy  love  decay, 
And  thy  fond  sweetness  waste  our  strength  away. 

No  !  by  these  hills,  whose  banners  now  displayed 

In  blazing  cohorts  Autumn  has  arrayed  ; 

By  you  twin  crests,  amid  the  sinking  sphere, 

Last  to  dissolve  and  first  to  reappear ; 

By  these  fair  plains  the  mountain  circle  screens 

And  feeds  in  silence  from  its  dark  ravines, 

True  to  their  homes,  these  faithful  arms  shall  toil 

To  crown  with  peace  their  own  untainted  soil ; 

And  true  to  God,  to  freedom  and  mankind, 

If  her  chained  bandogs  Faction  shall  unbind, 

These  stately  forms,  that  bending  even  now, 

Bowed  their  strong  manhood  to  the  humble  plough, 

Shall  rise  erect,  the  guardians  of  the  land, 

The  same  stern  iron  in  the  same  right  hand, 

Till  Greylock  thunders  to  the  setting  sun, 

"The  sword  has  rescued  what  the  ploughshare  won." 

The  reader  familiar  with  Dr.  Holmes'  poetry 
may  perhaps  observe  that  some  of  the  lines  in 
the  latter  part  of  the  above  poem  vary  some 
what  from  the  corresponding  ones  in  "  The 
Ploughman"  as  given  in  the  published  collec 
tions  of  the  author's  works.  This  is  due  to  the 
fact  that  we  give  the  poem  as  part  of  his  cattle- 
show  report  on  the  plowing  match  of  1849;  and 
print  it  as  recorded  in  that  connection.  But, 
certainly  and  without  a  peradventure,  every 
reader  will  observe  in  the  grand  poetry  of  these 


134  THE  POET  AMONG    THE   HILLS. 

closing  lines,  the  grander  prophecy  that  was 
grandly  fulfilled  many  years  after  it  was  pro 
nounced  from  the  pulpit-stairs  of  the  old  meet 
ing-house  of  patriotic  associations. 


VII. 
PITTSFIELD   CEMETERY   DEDICATION   POEM. 

Description  of  Cemetery  Grounds— Previous  Burial- 
Grounds—Dedication  Exercises— Rev.  Dr.  Neill's 
Address  Quoted— Dr.  Holmes  and  Wendell  Phillips 
—The  Poem. 

THE  Pittsfield  Rural  Cemetery  is  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  and  interesting  places  of  repose 
for  a  city's  dead.  There  are  few  so  well  fitted 
to  soothe  the  mourner  at  his  loved  one's  grave, 
as  this  where  he  finds  it  amid  noble  and  gently 
pleasing  natural  scenery,  developed  but  undis 
turbed  by  art.  The  visiting  stranger  also 
keenly  enjoys  these  beauties,  less  veiled  for 
him  with  saddened  thought;  and  with  the 
deeper  interest  if  he  is  able  to  invest  it  with  the 
historic  associations  that  of  right  belong  to  it. 

Previous  to  the  year  1850,  the  encroachments 
of  the  living  upon  the  resting-places — or  what 
should  have  been  the  resting-places — of  Pitts- 
field's  dead,  and  the  consequent  removal  of 
their  ashes  from  one  burial-ground  to  another, 
excited  painful  and  indignant  feeling  in  hearts 
to  which  those  ashes  were  endeared  by  memory ; 
135 


136  THE   POET  AMONG    THE   HILLS. 

and  sense  of  a  wrong  near  akin  to  sacrilege  in 
many  others.  Circumstances  in  the  early  spring 
of  1850  so  intensified  this  feeling  that  the  town 
reversed  its  policy  and  ordered  the  purchase  of 
a  spacious  and  every  way  suitable  site  for  a 
cemetery,  a  mile  north  of  its  central  business 
square.  In  April,  1850,  this  property  was  con 
veyed  in  trust  to  a  corporation  charged  with  its 
preparation  for  the  object  of  its  purchase,  and 
with  its  care  and  management  for  that  object 
in  perpetuity. 

In  an  official  report  of  this  corporation  the 
grounds  which  they  received  are  thus  described 
with  perfect  accuracy : 

"  Alternate  woods  and  lawns  vary  the  scene. 
The  irregularity  of  its  surface,  now  breaking 
away  into  gentle  inclinations  and  rounded 
knolls,  adds  greatly  to  its  attractions.  Fine 
trees  dot  the  landscape,  rural  sights  meet  the 
eye  wherever  it  is  turned.  Hidden  within  the 
deep  shade  of  the  woods,  the  wanderer  is  shut 
out  from  the  world;  but  as  he  emerges  upon 
the  uplands,  the  spires  of  the  village,  the  quiet 
homesteads  of  the  valley,  and  the  distant  moun 
tains  break  upon  him  with  a  beauty  almost 
enrapturing." 

Dr.  Horatio  Stone,  of  New  York,  an  artist  of 
well-won  national  reputation  for  such  work,  was 
engaged  to  lay  out  these  grounds  and  transform 
them  from  a  beautiful  natural  park  to  a  beauti- 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE   HILLS.  137 

ful  and  well-arranged  cemetery.  Poet  and 
sculptor,  his  fine  taste  and  peculiar  genius 
made  the  best  possible  use  of  the  facilities 
which  nature  offered  him  for  making  the 
spot  intrusted  to  him  more  lovely  than  he  re 
ceived  it. 

All  summer  long  men  and  women  of  taste 
and  feeling  cheered  and  encouraged  him  by 
their  visits  and  praises;  among  them  Dr. 
Holmes,  who  thus  had  frequent  opportunities  to 
make  studies  of  the  superb  and  varied  land 
scape  for  his  coming  poem. 

As  the  fall  approached,  although  Dr.  Stone's 
plans  had  been  but  incompletely  carried  out,  it 
was  determined  to  dedicate  the  cemetery,  and 
open  it  for  use  in  accordance  with  an  earnest 
desire  of  the  people  who  were  reluctant  to  lay 
their  dead  in  burial-grounds  soon  to  be  aban 
doned.  But,  although  much  remained  to  be 
done,  much  had  already  been  accomplished. 
Without  trenching  upon  their  wild-wood  char 
acter,  the  groves  had  been  rounded  into  grace, 
and  freed  from  the  unsightliness  of  decay  and 
careless  destruction.  Man  had  restored  to 
nature  something  of  the  symmetry  of  which  his 
rude  and  hasty  greed  had  robbed  her.  The 
waters  of  Onota  flowed  in  a  bold  and  rapid 
stream  across  the  entrance  of  the  cemetery; 
but  some  of  them  had  been  trained  in  a  winding 
brook  to  a  beautiful  lawn  where  they  spread 


138  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

into  a  pretty  lakelet,  to  which  Dr.  Stone  gave 
the  name  of  St.  John,  the  loving  and  beloved 
apostle  of  Christ;  the  consoler  of  the  mourner. 
Miles  of  roads  and  paths  wound  in  gentle  curves 
through  every  part  of  the  grounds;  while  along 
their  western  border  one  broad,  straight  avenue 
was  prepared  to  receive  its  long  vista  of  trees. 
Everywhere  a  beautiful  present  prophesied  the 
more  beautiful  future. 

Monday  the  pth  of  September  was  fixed  for  the 
dedication,  and  even  that  choice  week  of  all  the 
year  in  Pittsfield  never  afforded  a  more  perfect 
day.  The  procession  which,  early  in  the  fore 
noon,  moved  from  the  park  to  the  cemetery,  was 
heterogeneous,  but  not  in  bad  taste,  as  it  forc 
ibly  represented  the  hold  which  the  noble  pub 
lic  work  which  called  for  it  had  taken  upon  the 
hearts  of  all  classes  of  citizens.  A  platform  for 
the  speakers  and  the  choir  had  been  erected  on 
the  northern  slope  of  Chapel  Hill,  opposite  the 
south  shore  of  the  lakelet  of  St.  John.  And 
when  the  procession  arrived,  the  whole  popula 
tion  of  the  town  seemed  to  be  grouped  around 
it.  An  elaborate  program  of  exercises  had 
been  arranged  and  was  perfectly  carried  out. 
It  included  addresses,  prayers,  and  the  singing 
of  appropriate  original  odes.  The  dedicatory 
address  was  delivered  by  Rev.  Dr.  Henry  Neill, 
of  Lenox,  and  consisted  chiefly  of  reasons  why 
living  men  should  institute  memorials  for  the 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE   HILLS.  139 

dead  and  make  beautiful  the  spots  consecrated 
to  their  rest  and  their  memory;  the  argument 
being  eloquently  pressed  and  illustrated  by  ex 
quisitely  told  instances  from  ancient  and  mod 
ern  history.  We  quote  the  opening  passage: 

"  Have  we  been  persuaded — an  assembly  of  the 
living — to  look  upon  the  very  ground  where  we 
may  sleep?  Impelled  by  a  desire  to  do  honor 
to  the  dead,  have  we  come  within  the  precincts 
of  a  spot  where  every  shadow  seems  now  to 
deepen,  and  where  the  mountains  point  signifi 
cantly  to  the  skies?  The  sense  of  an  unpaid 
tribute  has  summoned  us  from  our  homes. 
Affection  in  its  reverence  and  depth  of  tender 
ness  has  longed  to  give  itself  expression  in  some 
outward,  significant,  and  permanent  form  until 
it  can  no  longer  be  denied.  Out  of  the  hearts 
of  a  large  community  the  declaration  at  length 
has  come,  that  the  remains  of  departed  worth 
shall  hereafter  find  a  safe  retreat  and  pledges 
of  remembrance,  foretokening  their  recompense 
of  a  higher  reward. " 

The  dedicatory  poem  was  then  read  by  Dr. 
Holmes.  Nowhere  can  the  poem  be  so  fully 
understood  and  enjoyed  as  here,  where  it  first 
fell  from  the  lips  of  its  author  in  the  presence 
of  the  landscape,  and  on  the  occasion,  which 
inspired  it.  Nor  can  the  varied  charms  of  that 
landscape  be  in  any  other  way  so  adequately 
appreciated  as  under  the  immediate  interpreta- 


140  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

tion  of  the  verse  which  at  once  described  them 
with  the  fidelity  of  a  photograph,  and  gave 
them  a  soul  with  all  a  great  poet's  creative 
power.  And  yet  that  verse  can  never  again 
thrill  as  it  thrilled  those  who  heard  it  pro 
nounced  in  clear  and  silvery  tones,  in  the  grove 
on  Chapel  Hill,  that  superb  and  memorable 
September  day  of  1850. 

Dr.  Holmes  is  reported  to  have  answered,  when 
he  was  asked  where  Wendell  Phillips  got  those 
marvelous  tones  that,  like  magic  music,  charmed 
the  most  hostile  audience,  that  it  was  "  at  his 
mother's  knee, "  or  "  in  his  mother's  parlor" ;  but 
those  who  listened  to  his  own  voice ,  not  ringing 
but  flowing  through  the  greenwood  arches  of 
Chapel  Hill,  will  believe  that  the  gift  to  both 
was  from  a  common  ancestry  far  back  of  that. 
There  was  much  that  day  to  give  character  to 
the  solemn  consecration  of  our  cemetery;  but 
the  willing  and  sympathizing  genius  of  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes  embalmed  it  forever  in  im 
mortal  verse. 

DEDICATORY  POEM. 

Angel  of  Death  !     Extend  thy  silent  reign  ! 
Stretch  thy  dark  sceptre  o'er  this  new  domain  ! 
No  sable  car  along  the  winding  road 
Has  borne  to  earth  its  unresisting  load  ; 
No  sudden  mound  has  risen  yet  to  show 
Where  the  pale  slumberer  folds  his  arms  below ; 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  141 

No  marble  gleams  to  bid  his  memory  live 
In  the  brief  lines  that  hurrying  Time  can  give ; 
Yet,  O  Destroyer !     From  thy  shrouded  throne 
Look  on  our  gift ;  this  realm  is  all  thine  own  ! 
Fair  is  the  scene  ;  its  sweetness  oft  beguiled 
From  their  dim  paths  the  children  of  the  wild  ; 
The  dark-haired  maiden  lovod  its  grassy  dells, 
The  feathered  warrior  claimed  its  wooded  swells, 
Still  on  its  slopes  the  ploughman's  ridges  show 
The  pointed  flints  that  left  his  fatal  bow, 
Chipped  with  rough  art  and  slow  barbarian  toil, — 
Last  of  his  wrecks  that  strews  the  alien  soil ! 
Here  spread  the  fields  that  waved  their  ripened  store 
Till  the  brown  arms  of  Labor  held  no  more ; 
The  scythe's  broad  meadow  with  its  dusky  blush  ; 
The  sickle's  harvest  with  its  velvet  flush  ; 
The  green-haired  maize,  her  silken  tresses  laid, 
In  soft  luxuriance,  on  her  harsh  brocade  ; 
The  gourd  that  swells  beneath  her  tossing  plume  ; 
The  coarser  wheat  that  rolls  in  lakes  of  bloom, — 
Its  coral  stems  and  milk-white  flowers  alive 
With  the  wide  murmurs  of  the  scattered  hive  ; 
Here  glowed  the  apple  with  the  pencilled  streak 
Of  morning  painted  on  its  southern  cheek  ; 
The  pear's  long  necklace  strung  with  golden  drops, 
Arched,  like  the  banian,  o'er  its  pillared  props; 
Here  crept  the  growths  that  paid  the  laborer's  care 
With  the  cheap  luxuries  wealth  consents  to  spare ; 
Here  sprang  the  healing  herbs  which  could  not  save 
The  hand  that    reared    them    from    the    neighboring 
grave. 

Yet  all  its  varied  charms,  forever  free 
From  task  and  tribute,  Labor  yields  to  thee ; 
No  more  when  April  sheds  her  fitful  rain 
The  sower's  hand  shall  cast  its  flying  grain ; 


142  THE   POET  AMONG    THE   HILLS. 

No  more  when  Autumn  strews  the  flaming  leaves 

The  reaper's  band  shall  gird  its  yellow  sheaves; 

For  thee  alike  the  circling  seasons  flow 

Till  the  first  blossoms  heave  the  latest  snow. 

In  the  stiff  clod  below  the  whirling  drifts, 

In  the  loose  soil  the  springing  herbage  lifts, 

In  the  hot  dust  beneath  the  parching  weeds 

Life's  wilting  flower  shall  drop  its  shrivelled  seeds; 

Its  germ  entranced  in  thy  unbreathing  sleep 

Till  what  thou  sovvest  mightier  angels  reap  ! 

Spirit  of  Beauty  !     Let  thy  graces  blend 
With  loveliest  Nature  all  that  Art  can  lend. 
Come  from  the  bowers  where  Summer's  life-blood  flows 
Through  the  red  lips  of  June's  half-open  rose, 
Dressed  in  bright  hues,  the  loving  sunshine's  dower; 
For  tranquil  Nature  owns  no  mourning  flower. 

Come  from  the  forest  where  the  beech's  screen 
Bars  the  fierce  noonbeatn  with  its  flakes  of  green  ; 
Stay  the  rude  axe  that  bares  the  shadowy  plains. 
Stanch  the  deep  wound  that  dries  the  maple's  veins. 

Come  with  the  stream  whose  silver-braided  rills 
Fling  their  unclasping  bracelets  from  the  hills, 
Till  in  one  gleam,  beneath  the  forest's  wings, 
Melts  the  white  glitter  of  a  hundred  springs. 

Come  from  the  steeps  where  look  majestic  forth 
From  their  twin  thrones  the  Giants  of  the  North 
On  the  huge  shapes  that  crouching  at  their  knees, 
Stretch  their  broad  shoulders,  rough  with  shaggy  trees. 
Through  the  wide  waste  of  ether,  not  in  vain 
Their  softened  gaze  shall  reach  our  distant  plain  ; 
There,  while  the  mourner  turns  his  aching  eyes 
On  the  blue  mounds  that  print  the  bluer  skies, 
Nature  shall  whisper  that  the  fading  view 
Of  mightiest  grief  may  wear  a  heavenly  hue. 


THE   POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  143 

Cherub  of  Wisdom  !     Let  thy  marble  page 
Leave  its  sad  lesson,  new  to  every  age  ; 
Teach  us  to  live,  not  grudging  every  breath 
To  the  chill  winds  that  waft  us  on  to  death, 
But  ruling  calmly  every  pulse  it  warms 
And  tempering  gently  every  word  it  forms. 

Seraph  of  Love  !     In  Heaven's  adoring  zone 
Nearest  of  all  around  the  central  throne. 
While  with  soft  hands  the  pillowed  turf  we  spread 
That  soon  shall  hold  us  in  its  dreamless  bed, 
With  the  low  whisper — Who  shall  first  be  laid 
In  the  dark  chamber's  yet  unbroken  shade? — 
Let  thy  sweet  radiance  shine  rekindled  here, 
And  all  we  cherish  grow  more  truly  dear. 
Here  in  the  gates  of  Death's  o'erhanging  vault, 
Oh,  teach  us  kindness  for  our  brother's  fault ; 
Lay  all  our  wrongs  beneath  this  peaceful  sod 
And  lead  our  hearts  to  Mercy  and  its  God. 

FATHER  of  all !     In  Death's  relentless  claim 
We  read  thy  mercy  by  its  sterner  name ; 
In  the  bright  flower  that  decks  the  solemn  bier 
We  see  thy  glory  in  its  narrowed  sphere  ; 
In  the  deep  lessons  that  affliction  draws 
We  trace  the  curves  of  thy  encircling  laws ; 
In  the  long  sigh  that  sets  our  spirits  free 
We  own  the  love  that  calls  us  back  to  thee ! 

Through  the  hushed  street,  along  the  silent  plain 
The  spectral  future  leads  its  mourning  train, 
Dark  with  the  shadows  of  uncounted  bands, 
Where  man's  white  lips  and  woman's  wringing  hands 
Track  the  still  burden,  rolling  slow  before, 
That  love  and  kindness  can  protect  no  more  ; 
The  smiling  babe  that,  called  to  mortal  strife, 
Shuts  its  meek  eyes  and  drops  its  little  life  ; 


144  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

The  drooping  child  that  prays  in  vain  to  live, 
And  pleads  for  help  its  parent  cannot  give  ; 
The  pride  of  beauty  stricken  in  its  flower ; 
The  strength  of  manhood  broken  in  an  hour ; 
Age  in  its  weakness,  bowed  by  toil  and  care, 
Traced  in  sad  lines  beneath  its  silvered  hair. 

The  sun  shall  set,  and  heaven's  resplendent  spheres 
Gild  the  smooth  turf  unhallowed  yet  by  tears, 
But  ah,  how  soon  the  evening  stars  will  shed 
Their  sleepless  light  around  the  slumbering  dead ! 

Take  them,  O  Father,  in  immortal  trust! 
Ashes  to  ashes,  dust  to  kindred  dust, 
Till  the  last  angel  rolls  the  stone  away 
And  a  new  morning  brings  eternal  day  ! 


VIII. 

THE   NEW   EDEN. 
How  the  Poem  Was  Written. 

THERE  is  a  curious  story  connected  with  the 
writing  of  "The  New  Eden."  The  Berkshire 
Horticultural  Society  had  a  very  pleasant  anni 
versary  dinner  at  Stockbridge,  September  13, 
1854,  which  was  attended  by  persons  of  nice 
tastes  from  all  parts  of  the  county.  Among 
them  was  Hon.  Edward  A.  Newton,  of  Pittsfield, 
a  gentleman  of  rare,  varied,  and  fastidious  cul 
ture.  On  his  return,  Mr.  Newton,  meeting  a 
local  editor,  extolled  without  measure  a  poem 
which  Dr.  Holmes  had  read  at  the  dinner,  and 
urged  the  editor  to  procure  it  for  publication ; 
and  he  accordingly  asked  for  it,  although,  know 
ing  the  money  value  of  Dr.  Holmes'  verse,  he 
had  great  doubts  about  obtaining  it.  But  the 
poet,  with  his  usual  kindness — aided  perhaps 
by  a  good  word  from  his  friend,  Mr.  Newton — 
readily  consented  to  furnish  the  copy  on  three 
conditions:  that  he  should  have  as  many  proofs 
and  make  as  many  alterations  as  he  might 
please,  and  that,  when  the  poem  was  ready,  he 
10  145 


146  THE  POET  AMONG    THE   HILLS. 

should  have  a  hundred  copies  handsomely 
printed  on  commercial  note-paper.  These 
terms  would  have  been  but  trifling  for  the  least 
considerable  poem  from  Dr.  Holmes'  pen. 
They  were  eagerly  accepted.  He  had  sixteen 
proofs,  and  made  so  many  alterations  and  ad 
ditions  that  the  completed  poem— "The  New 
Eden" — was  more  than  double  the  length  of  that 
read  at  Stockbridge;  while  the  slight  infusion 
of  humor  that  flavored  it  for  the  dinner-table 
had  entirely  disappeared. 

It  is  only  necessary  to  add  by  way  of  explana 
tion,  that  in  the  summer  of  1854  Berkshire 
County  suffered  from  one  of  the  most  severe 
and  prolonged  droughts  it  ever  knew.  The  poem 
portrays  it  with  its  author's  invariable  fidelity 
to  Nature. 

THE  NEW  EDEN. 

Scarce  could  the  parting  ocean  close, 

Seamed  by  the  Mayflower's  cleaving  bow, 

When  o'er  the  rugged  desert  rose 
The  waves  that  tracked  the  Pilgrim's  plough. 

Then  sprang  from  many  a  rock-strewn  field 
The  rippling  grass,  the  nodding  grain, 

Such  growths  as  English  meadows  yield 
To  scanty  sun  and  frequent  rain. 

But  when  the  fiery  days  were  done, 
And  Autumn  brought  his  purple  haze, 

Then,  kindling  in  the  slanted  sun, 

The  hill-sides  gleamed  with  golden  maize. 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  147 

Nor  treat  his  homely  gift  with  scorn 
Whose  fading  memory  scarce  can  save 

The  hillocks  where  he  sowed  his  corn, 
The  mounds  that  mark  his  nameless  grave. 

The  food  was  scant,  the  fruits  were  few  : 
A  red  streak  glistened  here  and  there ; 

Perchance  in  statelier  precincts  grew 
Some  stern  old  Puritanic  pear. 

Austere  in  taste,  and  tough  at  core 

Its  unrelenting  bulk  was  shed, 
To  ripen  in  the  Pilgrim's  store 

When  all  the  summer  sweets  were  fled. 

Such  was  his  lot,  to  front  the  storm 

With  iron  heart  and  marble  brow, 
Nor  ripen  till  his  earthly  form 

Was  cast  from  life's  Autumnal  bough. 

But  ever  on  the  bleakest  rock 

We  bid  the  brightest  beacon  glow 
And  still  upon  the  thorniest  stock 

The  sweetest  roses  love  to  blow. 

So  on  our  rude  and  wintry  soil 

We  feed  the  kindling  flame  of  art, 
And  steal  the  tropic's  blushing  spoil 

To  bloom  on  Nature's  icy  heart. 

See  how  the  softening  Mother's  breast 
Warms  to  her  children's  patient  wiles,— 

Her  lips  by  loving  Labor  pressed 
Break  in  a  thousand  dimpling  smiles, 

From  when  the  flushing  bud  of  June 
Dawns  with  its  first  auroral  hue, 


148  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

Till  shines  the  rounded  harvest  moon, 
And  velvet  dahlias  drink  the  dew. 

Nor  these  the  only  gifts  she  brings ; 

Look  where  the  laboring  orchard  groans, 
And  yields  its  beryl- threaded  strings 

For  chestnut  burs  and  hemlock  cones. 

Dear  though  the  shadowy  maple  be, 
And  dearer  still  the  whispering  pine, 

Dearest  yon  russet-laden  tree 

Browned  by  the  heavy  rubbing  kine  ! 

There  childhood  flung  its  venturous  stone, 
And  boyhood  tried  its  daring  climb, 

And  though  our  summer  birds  have  flown 
It  blooms  as  in  the  olden  time. 

Nor  be  the  Fleming's  pride  forgot, 

With  swinging  drops  and  drooping  bells, 

Freckled  and  splashed  with  streak  and  spot, 
On  the  warm -breasted,  sloping  swells; 

Nor  Persia's  painted  garden-queen, — 
Frail  Houri  of  the  trellised  wall, — 

Her  deep-cleft  bosom  scarfed  with  green, — 
Fairest  to  see,  and  first  to  fall. 

When  man  provoked  his  mortal  doom, 

And  Eden  trembled  as  he  fell, 
When  blossoms  sighed  their  last  perfume, 

And  branches  waved  their  long  farewell, 

One  sucker  crept  beneath  the  gate, 
One  seed  was  wafted  o'er  the  wall, 

One  bough  sustained  his  trembling  weight ; 
These  left  the  garden— these  were  all. 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  149 

And  far  o'er  many  a  distant  zone 
These  wrecks  of  Eden  still  are  flung : 

The  fruits  that  Paradise  hath  known 
Are  still  in  earthly  gardens  hung. 

Yes,  by  our  own  unstoried  stream 
The  pink-white  apple-blossoms  burst 

That  saw  the  young  Euphrates  gleam — 
That  Gihon's  circling  waters  nursed. 

For  us  the  ambrosial  pear  displays 
The  wealth  its  arching  branches  hold, 

Bathed  by  a  hundred  summery  days 
In  floods  of  mingling  fire  and  gold. 

And  here,  where  beauty's  cheek  of  flame 
With  morning's  earliest  beam  is  fed, 

The  sunset-painted  peach  may  claim 
To  rival  its  celestial  red. 

What  though  in  some  unmoistened  vale 
The  summer  leaf  grow  brown  and  sere, 

Say,  shall  our  star  of  promise  fail 
That  circles  half  the  rolling  sphere, 

From  beaches  salt  with  bitter  spray 

O'er  prairies  green  with  softest  rain 
And  ridges  bright  with  evening's  ray 

To  rocks  that  shade  the  stormless  main? 

If  by  our  slender-threaded  streams 

The  blade  and  leaf  and  blossom  die, 
If  drained  by  noon-tide's  parching  beams 

The  milky  veins  of  Nature  dry, 

See  with  her  swelling  bosom  bare 
Yon  wild-eyed  Sister  in  the  West, — 


i$o  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

The  ring  of  Empire  round  her  hair, — 
The  Indian's  wampum  on  her  breast! 

We  saw  the  August  sun  descend 
Day  after  day  with  blood-red  stain, 

And  the  blue  mountains  dimly  blend 

With  smoke-wreaths  from  the  burning  plain 

Beneath  the  hot  Sirocco's  wings 
We  sat  and  told  the  withering  hours, 

Till  Heaven  unsealed  its  azure  springs, 
And  bade  them  leap  in  flashing  showers. 

Yet  in  our  Ishmael's  thirst  we  knew 
The  mercy  of  the  Sovereign  hand 

Would  pour  the  fountain's  quickening  dew 
To  feed  some  harvest  of  the  land. 

No  flaming  swords  of  wrath  surround 
Our  second  Garden  of  the  Blest ; 

It  spreads  beyond  its  rocky  bound 
It  climbs  Nevada's  glittering  crest. 

God  keep  the  tempter  from  its  gate  ! 

God  shield  the  children,  lest  they  fall 
From  their  stern  fathers'  free  estate, 

Till  Ocean  is  its  only  wall ! 


IX. 

POEMS  FOR  LADIES'  FAIR. 

St.  Stephen's  Church  Fair— A  Lady's  Raid  on  Dr. 
Holmes'  Poetical  Preserves  — Camilla  — Portia's 
Leaden  Casket— What  a  Dollar  Will  Buy. 

DURING  his  Pittsfield  residence,  Dr.  Holmes 
was  a  constant  attendant  on  St.  Stephen's 
Church;  and  he  took  a  genuine  interest  in  the 
prosperity  of  the  parish  as  it  was  indicated  by 
the  enlargement  and  improvement  of  its  neat 
little  gray-stone  Gothic  edifice — an  interest 
that  continued  through  life,  as  was  pleasantly 
shown  in  a  letter  of  1893,  warmly  congratulat 
ing  his  long-time  friend,  Rev.  Dr.  Newton,  the 
rector  in  that  year,  upon  the  completion  of  the 
large  and  beautiful  church  then  just  erected. 
Among  other  touching  memories,  it  recalled 
the  writer's  attendance  in  the  old  church,  to 
whose  building  he  made  a  curious  contribution, 
that  is  now  to  be  described  here.  In  1855,  St. 
Stephen's  parishioners  were  even  more  than 
usually  zealous.  The  ladies,  as  ever,  were  fore 
most  in  their  zeal ;  and  they  made  extraordinary 
preparations  for  a  fair  that  is  still  brilliant  in 
151 


152  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

local  society  tradition.  In  their  councils,  they 
cast  longing  eyes  toward  the  villa  by  the  Housa- 
tonic.  They  had  even  the  temerity  to  solicit  a 
contribution  from  its  master — not  from  his 
purse  or  his  garden,  which  were  open  enough, 
but  from  his  pen :  something  for  the  fair  "  post- 
office."  He  happened  to  be  at  the  moment  so 
pressed  for  time  that  he  was  compelled  to  plead 
preoccupation. 

The  committee  were  in  despair.  But  Broad- 
hall  was  then  the  home  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  J.  R. 
Morewood;  both  among  the  most  devoted  St. 
Stephen's  parishioners.  Mrs  Morewood  had 
too  wide  acquaintance  with  literary  lions  to  be 
daunted  even  by  one  so  formidable  as  Dr. 
Holmes, — who  did  not  become  "Autocratic" 
until  two  years  later.  Perhaps,  too,  the  lady 
had  an  inkling  that  his  kind  heart,  and  their 
common  love  for  St.  Stephen's  would  aid  her 
pleading.  At  any  rate,  when  she  heard  of  the 
committee's  disappointment  she  at  once  mounted 
her  horse  and,  with  a  single  aid-de-camp,  dashed 
off  to  the  villa  by  the  Housatonic.  There  she 
presented  her  petition,  and  it  almost  goes  with 
out  saying  that  it  was  granted  by  the  promise 
of  two  poems  for  the  post-office.  Dr.  Holmes, 
of  course,  escorted  his  fair  besieger  to  the  door ; 
and  in  assisting  her  to  remount  her  horse,  being 
perhaps  poetically  nervous,  he  did  not  calculate 
with  precise  accuracy  the  amount  of  force  neces- 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  153 

sary  to  place  her  gracefully  in  her  seat.  The 
saddle  was,  however,  gained  without  a  fall. 
But  the  poet,  busy  as  he  was,  did  not  forget 
the  incident,  and  when  the  fair  postmistress 
received  the  two  poems  promised  for  her  mail, 
there  came  also  one  for  Mrs.  Morewood,  which 
described  it  with  his  never-failing  grace,  wit, 
and  accuracy.  We  present  it  here. 


CAMILLA. 

The  gray  robe  trailing  round  her  feet, 
She  smiled  and  took  the  slippered  stirrup 

(A  smile  as  sparkling,  rosy,  sweet, 
As  soda,  drawn  with  strawberry  syrup)  ;  — 

Now,  gallant,  now  !  be  strong  and  calm, — 
The  graceful  toilet  is  completed, — • 

Her  foot  is  in  thy  hollowed  palm- 
One  little  spring,  and  she  is  seated  ! 

No  foot-print  on  the  grass  was  seen, 

The  clover  hardly  bent  beneath  her, 
I  knew  not  if  she  pressed  the  green, 

Or  floated  over  it  in  ether  ; 
Why,  such  an  airy,  fairy  thing 

Should  carry  ballast  in  her  pocket, — 
God  bless  me  !     If  I  help  her  spring 

She'll  shoot  up  heavenward  like  a  rocket. 

Ah,  fatal  doubt !  The  sleepless  power 
That  chains  the  orbs  of  light  together, 

Bends  on  its  stem  the  slenderest  flower 
That  lifts  its  plume  from  turf  or  heather ; 


154  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

Clasp,  lady,  clasp  the  bridle  rein  ! 

The  filly  stands— hold  hard  upon  her ! 
Twine  fast  those  fingers  in  her  mane, 

Or  all  is  lost — excepting  honor ! 

Earth  stretched  his  arms  to  snatch  his  prize, 

The  fairies  shouted  "Stand  from  under!" 
The  violets  shut  their  purple  eyes, 

The  naked  daisies  stared  in  wonder ; 
One  moment. Seated  in  her  pride, 

Those  arms  shall  try  in  vain  to  win  her; 
"Earth  claims  her  not,"  the  fairies  cried, 

"She  has  so  little  of  it  in  her !" 

The  lady's  raid  on  his  poetic  preserves,  with 
its  closing  incident,  reminded  her  classic  host  of 
Diana's  light-footed  messenger,  Camilla,  and 
probably  of  Pope's  old  familiar  lines: 

"When  swift  Camilla  scours  along  the  plain, 
Flies  o'er  the  unbending  corn,   and   skims  along  the 
main." 

The  two  other  poems  were  inclosed  in  en 
velopes,  inscribed  with  mottoes.  These  were 
disposed  of  in  a  raffle,  the  winner  of  the  first 
prize  selecting  that  of  the  two  poems  which 
pleased  him,  from  the  motto  on  the  envelope. 

PORTIA'S  LEADEN  CASKET. 

Mrs.  Ensign  H.  Kellogg  drew  the  first  prize 
and  selected  the  envelope  inscribed  with  the 
following 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.          155 

MOTTO. 

Faith  is  the  conquering  Angel's  crown ; 

Who  hopes  for  grace  must  ask  it ; 
Look  shrewdly  ere  you  lay  me  down  ; 

I'm  Portia's  leaden  casket. 

The  following  verses  were  found  within: 

Fair  lady,  whosoe'er  thou  art, 
Turn  this  poor  leaf  with  tenderest  care 

And— hush,  O  hush  thy  beating  heart — 
The  One  thou  lovest  will  be  there ! 

Alas  !  not  loved  by  thee  alone, 

Thine  idol,  ever  prone  to  range  ; 
To-day,  all  thine,  to-morrow  flown, 

Frail  thing  that  every  hour  may  change. 

Yet,  when  that  truant  course  is  done, 

If  thy  lost  wanderer  reappear, 
Press  to  thy  heart  the  only  One 

That  nought  can  make  more  truly  dear ! 

Within  this  note  was  a  slip  of  paper,  with  the 
following  verses,  inclosing  a  one  dollar  bill : 

Fair  lady,  lift  thine  eyes  and  tell 

If  this  is  not  a  truthful  letter, 
This  is  the  one  (i)  thou  lovest  well 

And  nought  (o)  can  make  thee  love  it  better  (10) . 

Though  fickle,  do  not  think  it  strange 
That  such  a  friend  is  worth  possessing, 

For  one  that  gold  can  never  change, 
Is  Heaven's  own  dearest  earthly  blessing. 


156  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 


WHAT  A  DOLLAR  WILL  BUY. 

The  second  prize  fell  to  Col.  George  S.  Willis. 
The  following  was  the 


If  man,  or  boy,  or  dolt,  or  scholar 
Will  break  this  seal,  he  pays  his  dollar ; 
But  if  he  reads  a  single  minute, 
He'll  find  a  dollar' s  worth  within  it. 

A  DOLLAR'S  WORTH. 

Listen  to  me  and  I  will  try 

To  tell  you  what  a  dollar  will  buy. 

A  dollar  will  buy  a  Voter's  conscience, 

Or  a  book  of  "  Fiftieth  thousand"  nonsense  ; 

Or  a  ticket  to  hear  a  Prima  Donna, 

Or  a  fractional  part  of  a  statesman's  honor ; 

It  will  buy  a  tree  to  sit  in  the  shade  of, 
Or  half  the  cotton  a  tour  nitre*  s  made  of. 

It  will  buy  a  glass  of  rum  or  gin 

At  a  Deacon's  store  or  a  Temperance  inn. 

(The  Deacon  will  show  you  how  to  mix  it, 
Or  the  Temperance  Landlord  stay  and  fix  it.) 

It  will  buy  a  painting  at  Burbank's  hall 

That  will  frighten  the  spiders  from  off  the  wall ; 

Or  a  dozen  teaspoons  of  medium  size, 
That  will  do  for  an  Agricultural  prize. 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  157 

It  will  buy  four  tickets  to  Barnum's  show— 

(Late  firm  of  Pharaoh,  Herod  &  Co.) 

Or  get  you  a  paper  that  brings  by  mail 

Its  weekly  "Original  thrilling  tale" — 

Of  which  the  essential  striking  plot 

Is  a  daddy  that's  rich  and  a  youth  that's  not, 

Who  seeking  in  vain  for  Papa's  consent, 

Runs  off  with  his  daughter— the  poor  old  gent ! 

The  Governor's  savage  ;  at  last  relents 

And  leaves  them  a  million  in  cash  and  rents. 

Or  a  Hair-wash,  patent,  and  warranted  too, 

That  will  turn  your  whiskers  from  gray  to  blue, 

And  dye  old  three-score  as  good  as  new ; 

So  that  your  wife  will  open  her  eyes 

And  treat  you  with  coolness,  and  then  surprise, 

And  at  last,  as  you're  sidling  up  to  her, 

Cry  "I'll  call  my  husband,  you  saucy  cur!" 

Or  a  monochrome  landscape,  done  in  an  hour, 
That  looks  like  a  ceiling  stained  in  a  shower ; 

Or  a  ride  to  Lenox  through  mire  and  clay, 
Where  you  may  see,  through  the  livelong  day, 
Scores  of  women  with  couples  of  men 
Trudging  up  hill — and  down  again. 

This  is  what  a  dollar  will  do, 

With  many  things  as  strange  but  true ; 

This  very  dollar  I've  got  from  you— 

P.  S.  We  shouldn't  mind  if  you  made  it  two. 

Two  or  three  of  the  hits  in  UA  Dollar's 
Worth"  do  not  fit  quite  so  well  as  they  did  in 
1855.  Time  has  wrought  many  changes  in 
forty  years:  but  none  to  affect  the  victims  of 


158  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

these  verses  so  seriously  that  the  reader  cannot 
find  somewhere  some  application  for  their  wit. 

The  allusion  to  the  paintings  in  Burbank's 
Hall  is  so  local  and  dates  so  far  back  that  it 
requires  a  little  explanation.  This  hall,  the 
largest  in  Pittsfield  for  years,  was  a  very  plain 
affair;  but,  on  account  of  its  size,  it  was  used 
for  all  the  purposes  which,  in  a  thriving  New 
England  village,  call  for  such  an  audience-room. 
All  the  great  lyceum  orators  of  the  day,  includ 
ing  Dr.  Holmes  himself,  spoke  from  its  plat 
form;  and  Fanny  Kemble  read  Shakespeare  on 
it  to  a  thousand  people.  One  day  a  hundred  or 
more  of  the  vilest  daubs  that  ever  pretended  to 
be  paintings  were  brought  to  it  to  be  sold.  It 
is  a  credit  to  Pittsfield  that  nobody  would  buy 
them,  even  for  the  value  of  their  frames.  Mr. 
Burbank,  therefore,  took  the  lot  for  his  rent; 
and  in  1855  they  hung  on  the  walls  as  a  relief, 
if  not  an  ornament,  to  their  barrenness.  What 
finally  became  of  them  we  do  not  know.  Per 
haps  they  were  in  the  wreck,  when  the  hall  itself 
crashed  down  under  a  weight  of  snow  in  1861. 

The  sale  of  the  two  poems  sent  by  Dr.  Holmes 
to  the  Fair  added  twenty-five  dollars  to  its  re 
ceipts,  which  were  applied  to  the  cost  of  re 
modeling  the  church;  so  that  the  St.  Stephen's 
of  that  time  was  the  third  Pittsfield  house  of 
worship  to  whose  building  the  descendants  of 
Col.  Jacob  Wendell  contributed. 


X. 

L'  ENVOI. 

The  Mountains  and  the  Sea — Presentation  from  Dr. 
Holmes'  Library  to  the  Berkshire  Athenaeum — 
Hawthorne's  Desk — Pittsfield  Characters  in  Dr. 
Holmes'  Novels— Good-By,  Old  Folks! 

IF  a  multitude  of  witnesses  will  serve,  all 
that  the  earlier  pages  of  this  volume  advanced 
relative  to  the  kindly  feeling  of  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes  for  the  mountain  county  of  the  Bay 
State,  and  particularly  for  the  town  of  his  sum 
mer  home,  has  been  made  good;  however  im 
perfectly  the  argument  founded  upon  their 
evidence  may  have  been  presented. 

Still  we  may  be  permitted  to  add  a  few  more 
words  of  similar  import.  And,  again,  they  are 
mostly  his  own ;  being  part  of  a  Breakfast- 
Table  Talk. 

"  I  have  lived  by  the  sea-shore  and  by  the 
mountains.  No,  I  am  not  going  to  say  which 
I  like  best.  The  one  where  your  place  is,  is 
the  best  for  you.  But  this  difference  there  is: 
you  can  domesticate  the  mountain,  but  the  sea 
is  fercR  naturce.  You  may  have  a  hut  or  know 
the  owner  of  one,  on  the  mountain-side;  you 
159 


160  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

see  a  light  half-way  up  its  ascent  in  the  even 
ing,  and  you  know  there  is  a  home,  and  you 
might  share  it.  You  have  noted  certain  trees, 
perhaps.  You  know  the  particular  zone,  where 
the  hemlocks  look  so  black  in  October  when  the 
maples  and  beeches  have  faded.  All  its  reliefs 
and  intaglios  have  electrotyped  themselves  in 
the  medallions  that  hang  round  the  walls  of 
your  memory's  chamber.  The  sea  remembers 
nothing.  It  is  feline.  It  licks  your  feet;  its 
huge  flanks  purr  very  pleasantly  for  you ;  but  it 
will  crack  your  bones,  and  eat  you,  for  all  that; 
and  wipe  the  crimsoned  foam  from  its  jaws  as 
though  nothing  had  happened.  The  mountains 
give  their  lost  children  berries  and  water.  The 
sea  mocks  their  thirst  and  lets  them  die.  The 
mountains  have  a  grand,  stupid,  lovable  tran 
quillity.  The  sea  has  a  fascinating,  treacherous 
intelligence.  The  mountains  lie  about  us  like 
huge  ruminants,  their  broad  backs  awful  to  look 
upon,  but  safe  to  handle.  The  sea  smooths  its 
silver  scales  until  you  cannot  see  their  joints; 
but  their  shining  is  that  of  a  snake's  belly,  after 
all.  In  deeper  suggestiveness,  I  find  as  great 
a  difference.  The  mountains  dwarf  mankind, 
and  foreshorten  the  procession  of  its  long  gen 
erations.  The  sea  drowns  out  humanity  and 
time;  it  has  no  sympathy  with  either,  for  it 
belongs  to  eternity;  and  of  that  it  sings  its 
monotonous  song  for  ever  and  ever." 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  161 

It  was  quite  unnecessary  for  the  writer  of 
these  words  to  state  in  set  terms  whether  he 
loved  best  the  mountains  or  the  seaside.  What 
we  can  domesticate,  we  love;  what  is  foreign 
to  our  homes  is  very  likely  to  be  foreign  to  our 
hearts.  To  be  sure,  Longfellow  preferred  the 
seaside.  He  was  born  and  passed  his  youth  in 
one  of  the  most  delightful  cities  by  the  sea:  in 
his  own  words : 

"  The  beautiful  town 
That  is  seated  by  the  sea. " 

The  mountain  air  made  him  drowsy,  so  that 
on  some  Pittsfield  days  he  could  not  get  on  at 
all  with  Kavanagh ;  which  goes  to  confirm  Dr. 
Holmes'  liberal  comment  on  the  choice  of  a 
summer  home;  "the  one  where  your  place  is, 
is  the  best  for  you.".  .  .  "You  must  cut  your 
climate  to  your  constitution  as  much  as  much 
as  your  clothing  to  your  shape.  After  this  con 
sult  your  taste  and  convenience.  But  if  you 
would  be  happy  in  Berkshire  you  must  carry 
mountains  in  your  brain;  and  if  you  would 
enjoy  Nahant  you  must  have  an  ocean  in  your 
soul.  Nature  plays  at  dominos  with  you ;  you 
must  match  her  piece  or  she  will  never  give  it 
up  to  you. " 

You  will  find  more  of  this  in  the  "Autocrat." 
Wonderful  book  that  "  Autocrat. "  More  in  it 
of  the  philosophy  of  the  material,  moral,  intel- 
ii 


1 62  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

lectual,  and  spiritual  universe,  done  up  in  a 
multitude  of  small  packages,  than  are  spread 
out  over  page  upon  page  of  a  dozen  ordinary 
books  of  great  pretense.  Whatever  your  case 
may  be  the  Autocrat  has  a  prescription  for  it. 

Some  of  the  paragraphs  we  have  quoted  ex 
plain  in  the  Autocrat's  own  poetic,  philosophic 
way  the  elements  in  the  mountains,  ever  con 
stant  in  form,  ever  varying  in  aspect,  which 
give  the  regions  they  dominate  a  definite  in 
dividuality,  that  fixes  them  in  the  memory  of 
their  children,  to  whom  it  doubly  endears  them. 

While  the  present  volume  has  been  preparing, 
Pittsfield  has  received  an  unexpected,  but  per 
fectly  natural  and  exceedingly  welcome,  testi 
monial  to  Dr.  Holmes'  remembered  friendship. 
His  son  and  namesake,  Judge  Holmes,  found 
in  the  library  left  by  him  more  than  a  thousand 
volumes;  some  of  them  duplicates  of  books 
already  owned  by  himself,  but  mostly  works — 
many  of  rare  and  curious  value — better  suited  to 
the  shelves  of  a  public  institution  or  of  a  writer 
upon  such  varied  and  often  abstruse  themes  as 
Dr  Holmes  treated,  than  to  those  of  one  ab 
sorbed  in  intellectual  pursuits  of  a  different 
class;  where  they  might  long  lie  hidden  and 
unused,  while  students  were  craving  in  vain  the 
aid  which  they  could  give  to  their  investiga 
tions.  Judge  Holmes  did  not  wish  this  disuse, 
which  would  amount  to  a  misuse,  of  the  treas- 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  163 

ures  which  had  fallen  to  him.  Still  less  could 
he  think  of  making  merchandise  of  what  had 
come  to  him  from  such  a  source.  Remember 
ing  his  father's  old  kindness  for  Pittsfield,  and 
doubtless  inheriting  something  of  it,  he  there 
fore  presented  them  to  the  Berkshire  Athe 
naeum,  where  they  will  long  and  conspicuously 
bear  witness  to  the  affection  of  the  great  author 
who  once  owned  and  enjoyed  them  for  the  town 
to  which  he  was  bound  by  many  and  varied 
ties. 

This  Athenaeum  is  the  "  outward  and  visible 
manifestation"  of  what  is  best  in  intellectual 
Pittsfield.  Its  libraries,  cabinets,  and  galleries 
are  particularly  rich  in  mementos  of  men  dis 
tinguished  in  the  higher  fields  of  thought  and 
action.  Hitherto  the  most  highly  prized  of 
these  memorials,  at  least  among  those  of  men 
of  letters,  has  been  the  desk  upon  which  Haw 
thorne  wrote  his  earlier  and  greatest  novels. 
It  is  a  plain  but  handsome  piece  of  furniture; 
of  solid  mahogany;  not  large,  but  one  can  see, 
that,  with  its  capacious  lower  drawers,  a  deal 
of  hard  literary  work  could  be  done  upon  it 
conveniently  and  comfortably.  It  looks  as 
though  it  might  v.ery  well  have  come  from  old 
Salem,  arid  been  the  work-bench  of  a  man  like 
Hawthorne.  The  long  and  yearly  increasing- 
train  of  men  and  women  who  seek  it  as  a  shrine 
of  genius  is  a  pleasing  testimony  to  the  growth 


164  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

of  the  sentiment  which  prompts  loving  and  ad 
miring  homage  before  it.  It  has  long  been  the 
object  first  sought  by  visitors  to  the  Athenaeum 
of  this  class;  although  it  might  almost — not 
quite — have  been  said  that  it  was  only  primus 
inter  pares.  But  when  the  Holmes  presentation 
shall  have  been  arranged  in  the  alcove  to  be 
prepared  for  it,  the  desk  must  be  prepared  to 
divide  its  honors  with  the  books. 

And  this  reminds  us  that,  for  the  summer 
visitor  to  Berkshire  the  Athenaeum  is  a  capital 
supplement  to  its  natural  scenery.  When  a 
rainy  day  spoils  his  planned  excursion  in  its 
fields  and  woods  to  some  romantic  spot,  or  his 
climbing  for  a  grand  view,  it  need  not  involve 
ennui  in  its  cloudy  hours;  for  they  may  be  most 
agreeably  spent  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  Athe 
naeum's  gathered  treasures  of  art,  nature,  his 
toric  relics,  and  literature.  Sometimes  this 
affords  a  pleasing  relief  to  the  monotony  of  out 
door  sight-seeing;  and  it  always  gives  a  keener 
relish  for,  and  better  understanding  of,  the 
landscapes  afterward  seen. 

Our  attention  has  just  been  called  to  another 
and  very  striking  illustration  of  the  enduring 
nature  of  Dr.  Holmes'  affection  for  his  old  own 
Berkshire  home.  It  is  contained  in  a  letter  to 
a  very  old  and  valued  personal  and  literary 
friend,  written  as  late  as  January  24,  1894. 
And  it  is  worthy  of  remark  that  its  three  closely 


THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS.  165 

filled  pages  were  written  by  himself  in  his  neat, 
firm  penmanship,  when  most  of  his  correspond 
ence  was  carried  on  through  his  secretary.  We 
can  quote  only  a  few  sentences ;  but  they  are 
full  of  significance. 

"  Oh,  how  I  should  love  to  look  on  Pittsfield 
again !  And  yet  I  have  always  dreaded  the 
rush  of  memories  it  would  bring  over  me,  and 
dread  it  still.  But  there  lie  buried  many  of  my 
dearest  and  sweetest  memories  of  my  earlier 
middle  age ;  and,  if  I  cannot  look  on  Greylock 
and  Pontoosuc  with  these  eyes  which  are  fast 
growing  dim,  I  can  recall  them  with  infinite 
affection  and  delight." 

The  poems  collected  in  this  little  volume  are 
far  from  the  only  ones  that  Dr.  Holmes  wrote 
in  his  seven  Pittsfield  summers.  We  have  only 
taken  those  which  have  a  decided  Berkshire 
flavor.  But  there  was  an  incident  in  the  writ 
ing  of  one  of  the  others — the  "Astrea,"  if  we 
remember  rightly — which,  though  not  unusual 
in  the  operation  of  busy  minds,  may  be  of  in 
structive  interest  to  some  young  writer.  He 
had  written  one  morning  some  thirty  lines  with 
more  than  his  usual  ease  and  rapidity.  Then  he 
"  wrestled"  long  with  a  single  couplet,  of  which 
he  had  a  clear  idea,  but  could  not  suit  himself 
with  the  rhythm.  The  entrance  of  a  casual  visi 
tor  broke  the  "jam"  of  thought.  The  couplet 
was  completed  in  a  twinkling,  and  with  a  shout. 


1 66  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

"  Dr.  Holmes  made  some  pretty  close  studies, 
for  use  in  his  novels,  of  scenes  and  events  which 
came  under  his  eye  in  Pittsfield,  and  of  the  peo 
ple  who  took  part  in  them.  Are  you  going  to 
tell  about  those  scenes  and  events  and  point  out 
the  originals  of  his  characters?"  No,  inquiring 
friend.  Very  decidedly  we  are  not  going  to  do 
anything  of  the  kind.  Dr.  Holmes  certainly 
did  witness  some  striking  scenes  here,  ludicrous 
as  well  as  otherwise;  and  he  did  depict  them 
with  a  fidelity  to  nature  that  makes  one  suspect 
that  he  inherited  the  talents  of  some  old  Dutch 
artist  far  back  in  the  Wendell  genealogy.  And 
he  did  make  some  portraits  from  life  with  like 
accurate  truthfulness;  so  that  an  observant 
townsman,  coming  across  one  of  these  char 
acters  in  his  book,  would  be  very  apt  to  ex 
claim:  "Why  that  is  Mr.  X,  or  old  X,  to  a 
dot."  And  yet  it  might  be  that  the  novelist's 
character  was  given  a  birth-mark  or  a  scar  that 
did  not  disfigure  the  countenance  of  Mr.  X. 
Novelists  select  and  combine  traits  for  their 
characters,  just  as  the  old  Greek  sculptor  selected 
and  combined  the  beauties  of  many  beautiful 
women  to  form  the  most  beautiful,  and  the 
representative  of  the  goddess  of  beauty ;  only 
that  it  is  not  always  beautiful  traits  that  the 
novelist  selects.  Doubtless  in  the  sculptor's 
work  the  beauty  contributed  by  one  model  was 
so  recognizable  that  in  common  report  she  re- 


THE   POET  AMONG    THE   HILLS.  167 

ceived  credit  for  all ;  and  so  with  the  originals 
from  whom  the  novelist  draws  his  characters; 
he  whose  most  salient  features  most  nearly  cor 
respond  with  the  salient  features  of  the  man  in 
the  novel  is  held  responsible  for  all  the  ugli 
nesses  with  which  the  author  may  see  fit  to  in 
vest  him ;  so  that  Mr.  X  may  be  wrongfully 
deformed  with  the  humped  back  which  properly 
belongs  to  Mr.  Y. 

There  is  yet  another  reason  why  it  is  par 
ticularly  safe  for  us  to  refrain  from  attempt 
ing  to  identify  the  Pittsfield  characters  in  Dr. 
Holmes'  novels.  While  in  his  Berkshire  verse 
there  is  as  little  harshness  of  thought  as  of 
rhythmical  cadences,  and  while  it  is  as  void  of 
censure  as  the  sky  is  of  clouds  on  the  most  per 
fect  Berkshire  day  in  June  or  September,  there 
wras  in  him  abundant  electricity ;  latent  until 
it  was  needed  for  the  purification  of  a  moral 
atmosphere.  Tolerant  as  his  charitable  philos 
ophy  was  of  the  common  frailties  and  errors  of 
humanity,  from  the  bottom  of  his  heart  he  hated 
shams,  hypocrisy,  and  the  oppression  of  the 
helpless;  and  he  lashed  them  without  mercy 
wherever  he  found  them  hidden,  even  if  it  in 
volved  the  "  dusting"  of  a  prominent  citizen's 
best  black  broadcloth.  If  we  should  attempt 
to  point  out  of  what  he  made  fun  and  whom  he 
lashed,  we  might  do  injustice,  and  would  cer 
tainly  raise  a  storm  that  we  do  not  care  to  face. 


1 68  THE  POET  AMONG    THE  HILLS. 

No;  let  who  will  solve  the  problem,  Mr.  X 
may  still  represent  the  unknown  figure,  for  all 
we  shall  do  to  reveal  him. 

And  now,  to  make  a  final  quotation  from  the 
great  and  good-hearted  doctor  in  medicine  and 
in  laws— " Good-by,  old  folks!" 


APPENDIX. 


THE  OLD  CLOCK  ON  THE  STAIRS. 

L'eternite  est  une  pendule,  dont  le  balancier  dit  et 
redit  sans  cesse  ces  deux  mots  settlement,  dans  le  silence 
des  tombeaux  :  "  Toujours  !  jamais  !  Jamais  !  toujours  !" 

JACQUES  BRIDAINE. 

Somewhat  back  from  the  village  street 
Stands  the  old-fashioned  country  seat. 
Across  its  antique  portico 
Tall  poplar  trees  their  shadows  throw, 
And  from  its  station  in  the  hall 
An  ancient  timepiece  says  to  all, — 
"  Forever— never ! 
Never — forever !" 

Half  way  up  the  stairs  it  stands, 
And  points  and  beckons  with  its  hands 
From  its  case  of  massive  oak 
Like  a  monk,  who,  under  his  cloak, 
Crosses  himself,  and  sighs,  alas ! 
With  sorrowful  voice  to  all  who  pass, — 
"  Forever — never ! 
Never— forever !" 


170  APPENDIX. 

By  day  its  voice  is  low  and  light ; 
But  in  the  silent  dead  of  night, 
Distinct  as  a  passing  footstep's  fall, 
It  echoes  along  the  vacant  hall, 
Along  the  ceiling,  along  the  floor, 
And  seems  to  say  at  each  chamber  door, — 
"  Forever— never ! 
Never — forever !" 

Through  days  of  sorrow  and  of  mirth, 
Through  days  of  death  and  days  of  birth, 
Through  every  swift  vicissitude 
Of  changeful  time,  unchanged  it  has  stood, 
And  as  if,  like  God,  it  all  things  saw, 
It  calmly  repeats  those  words  of  awe, — 
"  Forever — never ! 
Never — forever!" 


In  that  mansion  used  to  be 
Free-hearted  hospitality ; 
His  great  fires  up  the  chimney  roared ; 
The  stranger  feasted  at  his  board ; 
But,  like  the  skeleton  at  the  feast, 
That  warning  timepiece  never  ceased, — 
"  Forever — never  ! 
Never — forever!" 

There  groups  of  merry  children  played, 
There  youths  and  maidens  dreaming  strayed 
O,  precious  hours  !     O,  golden  prime, 
And  affluence  of  love  and  time  ! 
Even  as  a  miser  counts  his  gold, 
Those  hours  the  ancient  timepiece  told, — 
"  Forever — never  ! 
Never — forever !" 


APPENDIX.  171 

From  that  chamber,  clothed  in  white, 
The  bride  came  forth  on  her  wedding  night ; 
There,  in  that  silent  room  below, 
The  dead  lay  in  his  shroud  of  snow  ; 
And  in  the  hush  that  followed  the  prayer, 
Was  heard  the  old  clock  on  the  stair,— 
"  Forever — never ! 
Never— forever!" 

All  are  scattered  now  and  fled, 
Some  are  married,  some  are  dead ; 
And  when  I  ask,  with  throbs  of  pain, 
"Ah  !  when  snail  they  all  meet  again?" 
As  in  the  days  long  since  gone  by, 
The  ancient  timepiece  makes  reply, — 
"  Forever — never ! 
Never — forever!" 

Never  here,  forever  there, 
Where  all  parting  pain  and  care, 
And  death  and  time  shall  disappear, — 
Forever  there,  but  never  here  ! 
The  horologe  of  Eternity 
Sayeth  this  incessantly, — 

"  Forever— never ! 
Never — forever !" 

There  is  a  popular  outcry  just  now  against 
inserting  in  works  intended  for  popular  read 
ing  phrases  in  foreign  languages  without  trans 
lations.  The  outcry  is  absurd,  as  of  course 
every  reader  knows  enough  of  French,  German, 
and  Latin  to  translate  for  himself;  but  as  the 
demand  seems  to  be  in  earnest  we  comply  with 


i?2  APPENDIX. 

it,  so  far  as  it  concerns  the  quotation  at  the 
head  of  the  poem  of  the  old  clock,  which  in 
English  would  read:  "Eternity  is  a  clock 
[horologe]  whose  pendulum  says,  and  repeats 
without  ceasing  these  two  words  only  in  the 
silence  of  the  tombs:  'Forever!  never! 
Never!  forever!'"  The  context  in  the  para 
graph  from  which  this  quotation  is  taken  makes 
it  much  more  grim,  but  not  so  well  adapted  to 
the  purpose  of  the  poet. 

The  view  of  the  House  of  the  Old  Clock, 
representing  it  as  it  was  at  the  time  of  Mr. 
Longfellow's  marriage,  is  copied  from  one  pre 
sented  to  the  Berkshire  Athenaeum  a  few  years 
ago  by  his  brother-in-law  Nathan  Appleton,  and 
inscribed  with  the  autograph  signature  of 
Henry  W.  Longfellow  in  testimony  to  its  accu 
racy  and  his  continued  interest  in  the  place. 


APPENDIX,  173 


A   BERKSHIRE   SUMMER   MORNING. 

ODE   FOR  THE  BERKSHIRE  JUBILEE. 

BY  MRS.  FRANCES  ANN  KEMBLE. 

Darkness  upon  the  mountain  and  the  vale. 
The  woods,  the  lakes,  the  fields,  are  buried  deep, 
In  the  still  silent  solemn  star-watched  sleep ; 

No  sound,  no  motion,  and  o'er  hill  and  dale 
A  calm  and  lovely  death  seems  to  embrace 
Earth's  fairest  realms,  and  Heaven 'sunfathomed  space. 

The  forest  slumbers,  leaf  and  branch  and  bough, 
High  feathery  crest,  and  lowliest  grassy  blade ; 
All  restless,  wandering  wings,  are  folded  now, 

That  swept  the  sky,  and  in  the  sunshine  play'd. 
The  lake's  wild  waves  sleep  in  their  rocky  bowl. 
Unbroken  stillness  streams  from  nature's  soul, 
And   night's  great,    star-sown  wings  stretch   o'er  the 
whole. 

In  the  deep  trance  of  the  Imsh'd  universe, 
The  dark  death  mystery  doth  man  rehearse ; 
Now,  for  a  while,  cease  the  swift  thoughts  to  run 
From  task  to  task  ;  tir'd  labor,  overdone 
With  lighter  toil  than  that  of  brain  or  heart, 
In  the  sweet  pause  of  outward  life  takes  part : 
And  hope,  and  fear,  desire,  love,  joy,  and  sorrow, 
Wait  'neath  sleep's  downy  wings,  the  coming  morrow. 
Peace  on  the  earth,  profoundest  peace  in  Heaven, 
Praises  the  God  of  peace  by  whom  'tis  given. 


J74  APPENDIX. 

But  hark  !  the  woody  depths  of  green 

Begin  to  stir; 
Light  breaths  of  life  creep  fresh  between 

Oak,  beech,  and  fir: 
Faint  rustling  sounds  of  trembling  leaves 

Whisper  around ; 
The  world  at  waking  slowly  heaves 

A  sigh  profound; 

And  showers  of  tears,  night-gathered  in  her  eyes, 
Fall  from  fair  nature's  face,  as  she  doth  rise. 

A  ripple  roughens  on  the  lake, 

The  silver  lilies  shivering  wake, 

The  leaden  waves  lift  themselves  up,  and  break, 

Along  the  laurel  'd  shore  ; 
And  woods  and  waters,  answering  each  other,  make 

Silence  no  more. 

And  lo  !  the  east  turns  pale  ! 
Night's  dusky  veil 

Thinner  and  thinner  grows, 
Till  the  bright  morning  star, 

From  hill  to  hill  afar, 

His  fire  glance  throws. 
Gold  streaks  run  thro'  the  sky; 
Higher  and  yet  more  high 

The  glory  streams ; 
Flushes  of  rosy  hue 
Long  lines  of  palest  blue, 

And  amber  gleams, 

From  the  black  valleys  rise. 
The  silver  mists,  like  spray, 
Catch,  and  give  back  the  ray, 

With  thousand  dyes. 

Light  floods  the  Heavens,  light  pours  upon  the  earth  ; 
In  glorious  light,  the  glorious  day  takes  birth. 


APPENDIX.  175 

Hail  to  this  day !  that  brings  ye  home, 

Ye  distant  wanderers  from  the  mountain  land. 
Hail  to  this  hour !  that  bids  ye  come 

Again  upon  your  native  hills  to  stand. 
Hail,  hail !   From  rocky  peak, 

And  wood  embowered  dale, 
A  thousand  loving  voices  speak, 

Hail '  home-turn'd  pilgrims,  hail ! 
Oh,  welcome  !  From  the  meadow  and  the  hill 

Glad  greetings  rise  ; 

From  flowing  river,  and  from  bounding  rill, 
Bright  level  lake,  and  dark  green  wood  depths  still, 
And  the  sharp  thunder-splinter'd  crag,  that  strikes 
Its  rocky  spikes 
Into  the  skies. 

Greylock,  cloud-girdled,  from  his  purple  throne, 

A  voice  of  welcome  sends, 
And  from  green  sunny  fields,  a  warbling  tone 

The  Housatonic  blends. 

Welcome  ye  absent  long,  and  distant  far ! 

Who,  from  the  roof -tree  of  your  childhood  turn'd, 
Have  waged  mid  strangers  life's  relentless  war, 

While  at  your  hearts,  the  ancient  home-love  burn'd. 

Ye,  that  have  plough 'd  the  barren  briny  foam, 
Reaping  hard  fortunes  from  the  stormy  sea, 

The  golden  grain  fields  rippling  round  your  home, 
Roll  their  rich  billows  from  all  tempests  free. 

Ye,  from  those  western,  deadly  blooming  fields, 
Where  Pestilence  in  Plenty's  bosom  lies, 

The  hardy  rock-soil  of  your  mountains  yields 
Health's  rosy  blossoms  to  these  purer  skies. 


176  APPENDIX. 

And  ye  who  on  the  accursed  southern  plain, 
Barren,  not  fruitful,  with  the  sweat  of  slaves, 

Have  drawn  awhile  the  tainted  air  in  vain, 

'Mid  human  forms,  their  spirits'  living  graves. 

Here,  fall  the  fetters  ;  by  his  cottage  door 
Lord  of  the  lordliest  life,  each  peasant  stands, 

Lifting  to  God,  as  did  his  sires  of  yore, 
A  heart  of  love  and  free  laborious  hands.* 

On  each  bald  granite  brow,  and  forest  crest, 

Each  stony  hill  path,  and  each  lake's  smooth  shore, 

Blessings  of  noble  exil'd  patriots  rest ;  f 
Liberty's  altars  are  they  evermore. 

And  on  this  air,  there  lingers  yet  the  tone, 
Of  those  last  sacred  words  to  freedom  given, 

The  mightiest  utterance  of  that  sainted  one, 
Whose  spirit  from  these  mountains  soar'd  to  Heaven.}: 

Ye  that  have  prosper 'd,  bearing  hence  with  ye 

The  virtues  that  command  prosperity  ; 
To  the  green  threshold  of  your  youth,  ah  !  come  ! 

And  hang  your  trophies  round  your  early  home. 

Ye  that  have  suffer 'd,  and  whose  weary  eyes 
Have  turn'd  with  sadness  to  your  happier  years, 

Come  to  the  fountain  of  sweet  memories  ! 
And  by  its  healing  waters,  dry  your  tears  ! 


*This  stanza  was  omitted  in  the  reading,  as  it  was  thought 
not  to  be  in  strict  harmony  with  the  occasion. — ED. 

t  The  exiled  Italian  patriots  who  were  hospitably  and  sympa 
thetically  received  by  the  Sedgwick  family. 

JRev.  Dr.  William  Ellery  Channing. 


APPENDIX.  177 

Ye  that  departed  young,  and  old  return, 
Ye  who  led  forth  by  hope— now  hopeless  come, 

If  still,  unquenched  within  your  hearts,  doth  burn 
The  sacred  love  and  longing  for  your  home : 

Hail,  hail !  Bright  hill  and  dale 
With  joy  resound ! 

Join  in  the  joyful  strain ! 
Ye  have  not  wept  in  vain. 
The  parted  meet  again, 

The  lost  shall  yet  be  found ! 

And  may  God  guard  thee,  oh,  thou  lovely  land ! 

Danger,  nor  evil,  nigh  thy  borders  come. 
Green  towers  of  freedom  may  thy  hills  still  stand. 

Still,  be  each  .valley,  peace  and  virtue's  home  : 
The  stranger's  grateful  blessing  rest  on  thee, 

And  firm  as  Heaven,  be  thy  prosperity ! 
12 


178  APPENDIX. 


A   QUAINT   OLD   PAPER.  i 

AFTER  all  the  preceding  pages  were  in  type, 
we  received,  through  the  courtesy  of  Mr.  Henry 
Talcott  Mills,  from  Miss  Electa  Colt,  an  old 
manuscript  found  among  the  papers  of  her 
father,  the  late  Hon.  Ezekiel  Root  Colt,  who 
was  much  given  to  preserving  such  "  curios"  of 
Berkshire's  old  times.  And  it  is  of  so  peculiar 
interest  that  we  add  it  here,  even  at  this  late 
hour.  We  have  endeavored,  in  our  chapter 
illustrating  Dr.  Holmes'  poem  of  "The  Plough 
man,"  to  give  the  reader  some  idea  of  the  quaint 
elements  of  strength  which  rendered  the  old 
Berkshire  Agriculture  Society  a  source  of 
rational  pleasure  to  many  thousands  of  men, 
women  and  children;  and  of  power  for  good  in 
the  world.  But  this  old  paper  makes  one  of  its 
early  cattle-show  anniversaries  a  delicious  re 
ality  for  us;  the  dead  past  is  in  verity  restored 
to  life.  It  contains,  in  his  own  penmanship, 
the  directions  for  this  anniversary  given  to  his 
lieutenants  by  Elkanah  Watson,  the  creator  of 
the  great  system  of  American  county  cattle- 
shows.  In  it,  we  can,  as  it  were,  see  his  mind 
in  full  operation  as  he  was  laying  the  founda 
tions  of  that  system;  even  as,  when  the  first 


APPENDIX.  179 

cattle-show  procession  was  passing  through 
Pittsfield  streets,  the  spectators  saw  Abraham 
Scholfield's  hand-looms  at  work. 

Half  of  the  old  paper  preserved  by  Mr.  Colt 
is  occupied  by  a  ground-plan  of  the  old  meeting 
house  of  1791,  in  which  the  exercises  were  held. 
There  is  a  broad  platform  before  the  pulpit — 
the  deacons'  seat  intervening — upon  which 
places  are  assigned  for  the  officers  of  the  so 
ciety;  those  for  the  president,  vice-president 
and  a  third  person — perhaps  a  chaplain — being- 
designated  by  a  drawing  which  is  supposed  to 
represent  a  sofa,  but  which  looks  much  more 
like  a  boat  with  three  oarsmen.  The  body  of 
the  auditorium  is  arranged  in  five  sections:  the 
pews  on  the  west  side  of  the  broad  middle  aisle 
being  divided  between  the  "male"  and  the 
"female"  premium-takers,  and  those  on  the 
east  side  being  reserved  for  the  members  of  the 
society,  while  the  outer  rows  are  left  for 
the  "spectators."  We  copy  the  directions 
verbatim. 

"CEREMONY. — The  President  to  call  off  the 
premiums, — The  Vice-President  to  hand  the 
article  to  the  President,— the  treasurer  to  take 
it  from  him — the  person  [to  whom  the  premium 
is  awarded]  to  advance  to  the  foot  of  the  stage, 
as  his  name  is  called:  if  a  lady,  to  be  met  by  a 
marshal  and  conducted, — the  treasurer  to  de- 


i8o  APPENDIX. 

scend  the  steps,  meet  her  at  the  foot,  and  de 
liver  to  her  the  premium  and  certificate  |of 
merit] — the  marshal  then  to  conduct  her  to  a 
pew  on  the  right. — If  a  gentleman,  he  is  to 
ascend  the  steps,  and  receive  his  premium  from 
the  President;  the  marshal  then  to  conduct  him 
to  a  west  pew,  designated  above. — An  elegant 
band  of  music  to  be  provided  in  the  gallery,— 
some  lasses  as  singers  to  be  trained  to  sing  some 
pastoral  airs,  draped  in  appropriate  garlands 
and  flowers,  as  each  premium  is  delivered  to 
the  ladies.  Yankee  Doodle  is  to  be  struck  up 
[as  each  male  premium-taker  is  called]  to  con 
tinue  until  he  reaches  the  foot  of  the  stage;  and 
then  cease.  A  full  band  to  play  some  favorite 
short  air  after  the  premiums  are  delivered  to 
the  men — also  the  women." 

We  see  traces  of  Mr.  Watson's  Parisian  train 
ing  transferred  to  all  this  rural  pomp  and  cir 
cumstance;  and  to  those  who  do  not  take  into 
consideration  its  object  it  may  seem  out  of 
place  on  such  an  occasion.  It  would  be  so  at 
the  present  day,  to  which  a  balloon  ascension 
or  a  gubernatorial  lion  is  better  adapted;  but  it 
was  not  so  in  the  old  days,  when  rude  pageantry 
was  loved  if  it  was  significant.  Sentiment  is 
at  all  times  a  powerful  motor  for  the  public 
mind.  And  there  was  certainly  more  senti 
ment  in  a  silver  bowl  or  a  dozen  teaspoons, 


APPENDIX.-  181 

even  if  only  the  workmanship  of  the  village 
silversmith,  if  delivered  according  to  the  old  pro 
gramme  quoted  above,  and  with  a  handsomely 
printed  certificate  of  merit,  than  there  is  in  the 
one,  ten,  or  more  dollars  delivered  as  they  now 
are  to  meritorious  premium-takers  at  our  cattle- 
shows.  At  any  rate  the  old-time  cattle-show 
pageantries  made  the  desired  impression  upon 
the  secluded  community  of  few  holidays,  whose 
only  other  similar  spectacle  in  the  year  was  the 
procession  of  the  judges  in  their  robes,  from  the 
tavern  where  they  "stopped,"  to  the  court 
house,  preceded  by  the  high  sheriff  in  uniform 
and  holding  a  naked  sword  before  him.  The  im 
pression  made  by  those  old  cattle- shows  exten 
ded  far  and  wide,  as  thousands  of  others  were 
modeled  upon  them;  and  their  influence  for 
good  is  felt  to-day.  In  this  year  1895,  Berk 
shire  county  is  witnessing  festal  occasions — 
some  of  them  at  the  very  moment  we  are  writ 
ing  these  words — of  far  greater  costliness  and 
splendor  than  even  Elkanah  Watson's  sanguine 
forecast  of  the  county's  future  could  have  con 
ceived.  Will  they,  three-quarters  of  a  century 
hence,  be  remembered,  and  be  worthy  of  mem 
ory  for  their  influence  upon  the  world,  as  the 
programme  we  have  quoted  recalls  the  old  cattle- 
show  exercises  of  so  long  ago  that  they  were 
already  a  fading  phantom  of  the  past  when  Dr. 
Holmes  read  his  "  Ploughman"  in  the  same  old 


1 82  APPENDIX. 

meeting-house  in  which  they  were  conducted? 
It  may  be ;  for 

"  Moves  one,  move  all ; 
Hark  to  the  footfall ! 

On,  on  forever." 

PITTSFIELD,  June  6,  1895. 


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